Li Jian (李建) is a Falun Gong practitioner from Fuxin City in Liaoning Province and an employee of the Fuxin branch of China Unicom. In November 2023 he was sentenced to three years and six months in prison in connection with his religious practice, following his detention that July.
Background and earlier persecution
Li Jian was born in 1968 and worked as a college-educated employee of China Unicom’s Fuxin branch. According to practitioner-affiliated reporting, he had previously faced repeated detention for his Falun Gong practice — two administrative detentions in 1999 and a two-year labor-camp term beginning in November 1999.
The 2023 case
On June 13, 2023, Li Jian placed a leaflet about Falun Gong on a car door handle; a car owner photographed him and reported him to police, according to a detailed Chinese-language case report. After about a month of surveillance, police from the Xihe district branch of the Fuxin public security bureau detained Li at his workplace on July 19, 2023, and searched his home. He was criminally detained, formally arrested, and indicted.
On November 1, 2023, the Fumeng County Court tried his case. Li dismissed the guilty-plea counsel arrangement and mounted his own innocence defense; his 84-year-old father also spoke in his defense. On November 13, the court sentenced him to three years and six months under the charge of “using a cult to undermine law enforcement,” with an 8,000-RMB fine. The family appealed to the Fuxin City Intermediate Court on November 15. That court rejected the appeal without a hearing on December 12, 2023; a family motion to reconsider, heard March 5, 2024, was denied on March 14. Reporting at that time stated that Li had been sent to Panjin Prison.
(An English-language version of the case reporting dates his arrest to June 13, 2023, while the more detailed Chinese-language account places the leafleting incident on June 13 and the actual workplace arrest on July 19; the Chinese-language account is followed here for the timeline.)
Current status
According to the case record, Li Jian was serving his three-and-a-half-year term at Panjin Prison, with the reported term running through January 18, 2027. No independently verified information beyond the 2024-dated case records is available regarding his custody, transfer, or release. His present-day status is not asserted here.
A note on a different person with the same romanization
A different person, 李健 — a woman born in June 1961, a native of Hengxian, Guangxi, and a retired teacher of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou — was detained in November 2020 and sentenced to three and a half years, completing that term in May 2024. Her case is documented separately and is not connected to the Fuxin case described on this page.
Sources
- Minghui news (Chinese edition), November 24, 2023 — “辽宁阜新市法轮功学员李建被枉判三年半 家属上诉”: full case narrative covering the Fuxin origin, the Unicom post, the 1999 persecution history, the June 13 leaflet incident, the one-month surveillance, the July 19 workplace arrest and home search, the November 1 trial with self-defense and the father’s defense, the November 13 sentence, and the family appeal filed November 15. Full report
- Minghui (English edition), May 21, 2024 — “Liaoning Man Jailed After Motion to Reconsider Rejected, Appeal Denied”: corroborating report covering the Fuxin China Unicom employment, the flyer incident, the November 13, 2023 sentence by the Fumeng County Court, the December 12, 2023 appeal rejection without hearing, the motion to reconsider filed January 15, 2024, heard March 5, and denied March 14, the transfer to Panjin Prison, and the father’s defense. Full report
- Prisoners of Conscience database (human-rights monitoring organization) — individual record for 李建 / Li Jian: male, born 1968; taken 2023-07-19; charged with “using a cult to undermine law enforcement”; three years six months; term to 2027-01-18; Fuxin native, China Unicom Fuxin employee; prior 1999 detentions and labor camp; workplace arrest with home search; November 13, 2023 Fumeng County Court sentence with 8,000-RMB fine; appeal to the Fuxin Intermediate Court. Public search (query name=李建)
- 维权网 / Chinese-language rights monitoring network — Issue 131 monthly report, August 31, 2026: 李建 listed in the “sentenced to 3 years 6 months” group, reported in custody.
Further reading
The full documented case record for Li Jian is preserved in a companion media archive, which gathers the case chronology, cited sources, and evidentiary limitations in one place.