Person profile: Dong Yanmei (董艳梅) — Beijing House Church Missionary Detained in Mianyang, Sichuan
This archive preserves the documented public record on the detention of house-church missionary Dong Yanmei (董艳梅, Christian name Ruhamah / 路哈玛) — a Mianyang, Sichuan native serving a Beijing house church, held since March 2025 on suspicion of “organizing others to illegally cross national borders” (组织他人偷越国境罪).
### Chronology of coverage
– **2024 (per prisoners-of-conscience database; another source says 2025 — see conflicts):** Dong and three fellow Christians traveled with legal passports to Malaysia, Thailand, and Jeju Island, South Korea (all visa-free), and attended Christian gatherings.
– **March 23, 2025:** All four arrested. Mianyang police took Dong into criminal detention and accused the group of organizing others to illegally cross the national border.
– **May 3, 2025:** The three other Christians were released on bail; Dong was formally arrested on the same charge. The ChinaAid Association reported the formal arrest, publishing a prayer letter issued in the name of “Ruhamah’s Family” and condemning the travel restrictions and charge. (Reported by special correspondent Gao Zhensai.)
– **2025 (undated):** Entry on the case published by the revived human-rights outlet chinahrc.org (content/41940).
– **February 25, 2026:** *Bitter Winter* (by Qi Junzao) reported that the legally allowed preliminary-detention period had expired and Dong remained in the Mianyang Detention Center without a court date, formal explanation, or access to case files for her lawyer.
– **February 2026:** Human Rights Without Frontiers included the case in its China religious-persecution digest (February 15–28, 2026), summarizing the *Bitter Winter* report.
– **March 6, 2026:** The Population Research Institute’s PRI Insider newsletter summarized the case: nearly a year after her March 23, 2025 arrest, Dong remained detained despite the expired legal detention period.
– **March 20, 2026:** The mainland-China Prisoners of Conscience Database (tenchu.org, entry poc_d_00123) listed 董艳梅 Dong Yanmei, female, Sichuan/Mianyang, charge 组织他人偷越国境罪 (organizing others to illegally cross national borders), status 刑拘候审 (detained awaiting trial), detention site the Mianyang Detention Center (Yuantong Road 254, Chengjiao Township, Fucheng District, Mianyang, Sichuan, 621050). It also noted the cross-province detention, the formal arrest on May 3, 2025, and the over-detention (超押) since.
– **Social circulation:** A February 23, 2026 social-media campaign post circulated her name, Christian name, charge, and detention status.
### Source provenance
| # | Source | Date | What it provides | Verification |
|—|——–|——|——————|————–|
| 1 | ChinaAid (English) — “Dong Yanmei, a house church missionary, has been formally arrested…” | 2025-05-03 | Formal arrest confirmation; prayer letter; charge; travel details | VERIFIED — opened, full text read |
| 2 | tenchu.org Prisoners of Conscience Database, entry poc_d_00123 | updated 2026-03-20 | Chinese name 董艳梅; Mianyang origin; charge; detention site + address; 超押 status; status 刑拘候审 | VERIFIED — opened, full detail read |
| 3 | Bitter Winter — “China: Christian Missionary Dong Yanmei Still Detained Despite Expired Legal Deadline” (by Qi Junzao) | 2026-02-25 | Over-detention claim; no court date; lawyer denied file access | VERIFIED — opened, full text read |
| 4 | HRWF — China religious persecution digest (Feb 15–28, 2026) | 2026-02-26 | Secondary pickup summarizing Bitter Winter | VERIFIED — opened, digest excerpt read |
| 5 | PRI Insider (Vol. 6, Issue 10) | 2026-03-06 | Tertiary summary of the case | VERIFIED — opened, summary read |
| 6 | chinahrc.org content/41940 | 2025 | Case entry (Chinese) | FLAGGED — listed as source on tenchu; not opened; click-verify before publishing |
| 7 | chinaaid.net 2025/05 blog-post_45 | 2025-05 | Chinese-language version of the ChinaAid report | FLAGGED — listed as source on tenchu; not opened; click-verify before publishing |
| 8 | Medium (chierhu) — China persecution examples | ~2025-12 | Repeats case; writes 董燕梅; dates trip 2025 | VERIFIED — excerpt read; used for conflict record only (low provenance) |
### Conflicts, caveats, and evidentiary limits
1. **Travel year conflict.** tenchu.org dates the overseas trip to 2024; the Medium article says she traveled to Malaysia in 2025. ChinaAid and Bitter Winter do not date the trip. UNRESOLVED — do not assert a year on the Person page.
2. **Character-form conflict.** tenchu.org writes 董艳梅; the Medium article writes 董燕梅. The dedicated prisoners-of-conscience database (tenchu) is the stronger provenance, so 董艳梅 is used on the profile as PROBABLE, with this conflict noted for final QA.
3. **Advocacy-source dependence.** The core factual chain (travel legality, arrest sequence, over-detention) rests on ChinaAid, Bitter Winter, family statements, and the tenchu database. No court documents, detention notices, or official statements were located. All contested details must stay source-attributed on the Person page.
4. **Pseudonymous byline.** The Bitter Winter report is signed “Qi Junzao” and carries a note that a pseudonym is used for security reasons.
5. **No verified portrait.** No photograph of Dong herself was found in any source. Available imagery is generic: the Mianyang Detention Center (from social media) and an international Christian gathering (from social media) used as illustrations by Bitter Winter. Do not publish an unverified portrait.
6. **Names of the other three Christians** were not published in any source read; do not invent or infer them.
7. **Current status after March 2026 is unverified.** The latest direct evidence of her status is tenchu.org’s 2026-03-20 update. Do not claim she is still detained today; write “as of March 2026.”
### Consulate / official check
No statement from any Chinese government body on this case was located in open sources. No embassy or consular action was reported. (ChinaAid publicly urged the Chinese government to drop the charges; no response was reported.)
—