### Summary
Dong Yanmei (董艳梅) is a Christian missionary serving in a Beijing house church who has been held in Mianyang, Sichuan, since March 2025. A native of Mianyang known among Christians as “Ruhamah” (路哈玛), she was formally arrested on May 3, 2025, on suspicion of “organizing others to illegally cross national borders” (组织他人偷越国境罪), after traveling with fellow believers to attend Christian gatherings abroad. Her family rejects the accusation as baseless, saying she traveled entirely on a legal passport. As of the most recent independent reporting (March 2026), she remained in the Mianyang Detention Center without a trial date.
### Background
Dong is a native of Mianyang in Sichuan Province. She came to the Christian faith early in life and, according to family accounts, felt called to evangelism; she later moved to Beijing, where she worked as a missionary and pastoral worker helping establish and shepherd a house-church community. Friends describe her as gentle, devout, and tireless in ministry. She is known in church circles by the Christian name Ruhamah (路哈玛).
### The trip and the arrest
Dong and three other Christians traveled with valid Chinese passports to Malaysia, Thailand, and Jeju Island, South Korea — all visa-free destinations for Chinese citizens — and attended Christian gatherings there. (One database source dates this trip to 2024; another places it in 2025. See caveats.)
On March 23, 2025, authorities arrested all four. Mianyang police took Dong into criminal detention, accusing the group of “organizing others to illegally cross the national border.” On May 3, 2025, the three other Christians were released on bail; Dong alone was formally arrested on the same charge and remained in custody.
Her family has consistently rejected the accusation, noting that she used a passport issued by the Ministry of Public Security, passed through Chinese customs without incident, and entered Malaysia under its visa-exemption policy — so that, in the family’s words, the claim of “illegal border crossing” contradicts the facts. The family issued a public prayer letter calling for fair treatment and her release.
### Continued detention beyond the legal limit
Reports from February 2026 stated that the legally allowed period for preliminary detention had expired, yet Dong remained in the Mianyang Detention Center with no court date and no official explanation for her continued detention; her lawyer had not been given access to the case files. A mainland-China prisoners-of-conscience database recorded her status as “detained awaiting trial” (刑拘候审) as of March 20, 2026, listing the Mianyang Detention Center (Fucheng District, Mianyang, Sichuan) as her place of custody.
### What is known, and what is not
– **Confirmed by multiple sources:** her name and identity as a Beijing house-church missionary from Mianyang; the March 23, 2025 arrest with three others; the formal arrest on May 3, 2025; the charge of organizing others to illegally cross national borders; continued pre-trial detention in Mianyang as of March 2026.
– **Source-attributed (not independently confirmed):** the details of the overseas trip and her legal passport, the family’s account of the facts, the claim that the legal detention limit was exceeded, and the prayer letter’s contents.
– **Not known:** no sentence has been reported; no court date has been announced; no official Chinese government statement on the case has been found. Her current status after March 2026 is unverified.
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Media Profile & Archive: Dong Yanmei (董艳梅): Media Archive — House Church Missionary Detention Case