Li Yanxia (李艳霞) is a Falun Gong practitioner from Caidian District in Wuhan, Hubei Province. In late 2024 she was sentenced to eight years in prison following her detention in April of that year. She is a former cadre of the Yuejinqiao industrial and commercial office in Caidian District and had previously served a three-year prison term in connection with her religious practice.
Background and earlier persecution
Li Yanxia, born in the 1950s, is a native of Caidian District, Wuhan. She worked as a cadre at the Yuejinqiao industrial and commercial office of Caidian District. According to practitioner-affiliated reporting, on the morning of July 7, 2012, she was detained by Caidian Street police station officers after speaking about Falun Gong in public, then held at Wuhan No. 1 Detention Center and subsequently sentenced to three years, which she served at Wuhan Baofeng Road Women’s Prison.
The reporting also states that she was taken to a “transformation class” in January 2021.
The 2024 case
On April 3, 2024, Li Yanxia was at Baotong Temple in Wuchang District, Wuhan, when she was reported to police for speaking about Falun Gong. She was detained and held at Wuhan No. 1 Detention Center. In late 2024, it was reported that she had been sentenced to eight years in prison. The charge was not specified in the available reporting. Following the sentence, she was transferred to Wuhan Baofeng Road Women’s Prison, with the reported term running through April 2, 2032.
Current status
According to the case record, Li Yanxia was serving her eight-year term at Wuhan Baofeng Road Women’s Prison, with the term set to run through April 2, 2032. No independently verified information beyond the 2025-dated case records is available regarding her custody, transfer, or release. (Her present-day status is unverified and is not asserted here.)
A note on identity
A different woman with the same written name, 李艳霞 — a native of Qiqihar, Heilongjiang, resident in Dongguan, Guangdong — was detained in February 2021 and sentenced to two and a half years in September 2021, completing that term in August 2023. That case is documented separately and is not connected to the Wuhan case described on this page; none of its facts are used here.
Other similarly named individuals are also verified as distinct people and must not be merged with this profile: 苏艳霞 (Su Yanxia), 李延香 (Li Yanxiang), 张艳霞 (Zhang Yanxia), and 吴艳霞 (Wu Yanxia).
Sources: The biographical and case details above come from a human-rights case database and practitioner-affiliated reporting (Chinese language). The criminal charge was not disclosed in the sources reviewed, and the detention-to-sentencing narrative reflects those sources’ accounts.
Media and documentation archive: Media and documentation archive for Li Yanxia (李艳霞)