Yao Shuxia (姚淑霞) is a Falun Gong practitioner from Hailin City, Mudanjiang, in Heilongjiang Province. On March 30, 2021, the Hailin City Court sentenced her to six years and three months in prison.
According to case records compiled by an overseas monitoring organization, Yao was first seized on February 22, 2020, by domestic-security officers of the Hailin Public Security Bureau and given a 15-day detention that was not carried out at the time. On October 29, 2020, officers of the Hailin No. 4 Police Station took her to the Hailin detention center for another 15-day detention. When that detention expired on November 3, family members who came to collect her were told the February detention had still not been served and she would be detained a further 15 days. Before that period ended, the domestic-security chief informed the family that Yao had been transferred to the Mudanjiang detention center under criminal detention. On December 4, 2020, the family learned her case had been sent to the Hailin Procuratorate; in March 2021 they learned she had been indicted to the Hailin Court.
On March 30, 2021, the family received a same-day notice to attend the hearing and learned Yao was being tried that day. The court had given no advance notice of the hearing date, leaving the family no time to hire a lawyer, and Yao defended herself. At trial she rejected the prosecution’s charges and accused the police of fabricating evidence; the judge proceeded regardless, sentencing her to six years and three months. She appealed to the Mudanjiang Intermediate Court. The outcome of the appeal is not publicly documented, and the formal criminal charge has not been publicly documented.
Yao Shuxia has been listed in the monthly in-custody political and conscience prisoner roster compiled by the Weiquanwang Information Center, which recorded her 6-year-3-month sentence as of August 2026. With her detention beginning in late 2020 and sentencing in March 2021, her term is estimated to run into mid-2027. The prison where she is serving her sentence is not publicly known.
Media profile & archive: Yao Shuxia (姚淑霞) — Media Profile & Archive