Li Qin (李琴), born June 25, 1972, is a Christian and a zone leader and co-worker of the Golden Lampstand Church (金灯堂), a large unregistered house church in Linfen, Shanxi Province. In June 2025 she was sentenced to five years and seven months in prison on fraud charges, in a case that independent outlets describe as part of a campaign against the church; the verdict was upheld on appeal in August 2025. Her term is recorded as running to January 2031, and she is recorded as being held at Taiyuan City No.3 Prison.
The Golden Lampstand Church
Li, a native of Hongdong County, Shanxi, who lived in the Yaodu District of Linfen, joined the Golden Lampstand Church in 2017. In 2018–2019 the church appointed her head of its fourth pastoral district, overseeing ministry work in four zones — Xiguan, Nanjiao, Qiaoli, and Quting.
The church, founded by a small group of Christians and grown by 2016 into a congregation of more than 50,000 worshippers across multiple districts, has refused to join the state-managed Three-Self church system. Its large worship building, funded by believers’ donations, was demolished by the authorities in January 2018. The church has faced repeated pressure: in September 2009, hundreds of police raided its gathering places and a church-run shoe factory, injuring more than a hundred Christians, and several church leaders were sentenced that November.
The 2021 arrests
On August 6, 2021, police summoned Li; the next day she was given 15 days’ administrative detention and a 500-yuan fine on the grounds of “carrying out activities in the name of an illegal social organization.” On August 23 she was placed under criminal detention on suspicion of fraud, together with more than a dozen other church members detained in the same sweep. On September 27, the Yaodu District procuratorate approved the arrest of Li and nine others, including Pastor Wang Xiaoguang; the indictment alleged that the church’s collection of believers’ offerings constituted a criminal group that defrauded donations, and that Li, as head of the fourth pastoral district, was responsible for about 943,500 yuan obtained through church gatherings and evangelism.
Li was released on bail on October 20, 2021. Over the following years she cycled through further periods of bail and, in April 2023, six months of residential surveillance, as the case moved slowly through the procuratorate.
Trial and sentencing
On June 20, 2025, the Yaodu District Court sentenced Li and nine other church leaders and co-workers to prison terms ranging from one year and ten months (suspended) to nine years and two months, all on fraud charges. Li received five years and seven months plus a 50,000-yuan fine. All twenty defendants in the wider case appealed. On August 15, 2025, the Linfen Intermediate Court upheld the verdicts, and Li was taken into custody.
Independent outlets covering the case — including Bitter Winter, ChinaAid, and ASSIST News — describe the fraud charges as baseless and politically motivated, noting that the charges rest entirely on voluntary offerings made during normal worship, with no identified victims, and that defense lawyers argued the defendants were targeted for their faith and leadership roles. The church’s refusal to register with the religious-affairs authorities was cited by the court as a basis for treating it as an illegal organization. These characterizations are the outlets’ accounts, which have not been independently verified; the underlying prosecution and sentences are a matter of the court record as reported.
Current status
Li Qin is currently imprisoned, serving a five-year-and-seven-month sentence expected to run to January 2031. She is recorded as being held at Taiyuan City No.3 Prison in Taiyuan, Shanxi (No. 15 Xitaibao Street, Yingze District). No official court judgment or state-media coverage of her case has been located; the case record rests on the CHRD Prisoners of Conscience database entry and reporting by international religious-freedom and human-rights outlets.