Yu Fenglian (余凤连) is a petitioner (访民) from Gongxian County in Yibin City, Sichuan Province. Her family’s grievance began with a forest-land dispute: land allocated to her father during the 1952 land reform was, she says, encroached upon by neighbors, and inherited by Yu Fenglian and her brother after their father’s death. With administrative and legal channels exhausted, she took up petitioning — a path she has followed for more than a decade. She has been detained repeatedly over her years of petitioning. Her current custodial status is unresolved.
Who she is
In 2004 Yu Fenglian discovered the encroachment on her family’s forest land and petitioned township and county authorities under the forestry law, but the case went unresolved for years. In 2009 the Gongxian government issued a decision on the forest-rights dispute that she and her brother rejected; their applications for administrative reconsideration and their lawsuit were all dismissed. With legal channels exhausted, she took up petitioning.
Detentions and interception
Yu Fenglian has been detained repeatedly over her years of petitioning — administratively and criminally detained no fewer than ten times, according to 维权网’s reporting.
On the morning of September 28, 2020, she was petitioning at the Ministry of Public Security’s reception office in Beijing (Dongtangzi Hutong, Dongcheng District) when plainclothes interceptors forced handcuffs on her and seized her as a supposed “wanted person.” On September 30, her family received a criminal-detention notice from the Gongxian Public Security Bureau on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” (寻衅滋事罪). She was held at the Yibin County Detention Center.
According to the CHRD Prisoners of Conscience database, she was later released on bail and her residential surveillance was lifted; no sentencing result was found. But the pressure did not end: in October 2024 she traveled to Beijing with her brother Yu Haitang to defend their rights, only to be intercepted at Beijing West Station and brought back to the Gongxian public-security case center; her brother says she was then monitored and barred from going to Beijing. From 2025 onward, she and her siblings were restricted from leaving Gongxian and were repeatedly tracked, brought back, and briefly detained. Reports in 2025–2026 also state that she has been diagnosed with cancer and that her access to medical treatment — and to petitioning — has been obstructed. (These later reports are attributed to independent Chinese-language media and have not been independently verified.)
Status
Her current custodial status is unresolved. The August 2026 mainland political-prisoner roster lists her among those detained without trial, while the CHRD record describes release on bail in 2020 followed by years of surveillance, interception, and short detentions. She should not be described as imprisoned without fresher evidence. She is 余凤连 specifically — not to be confused with 张凤莲 or 熊凤莲, separate persons who share the given name.
Sources
- CHRD Prisoners of Conscience database — record for 余凤连 / “YU FENG LIAN” (citing 维权网, 看中国, 北京之春, 大纪元, 自由亚洲电台, 对华援助协会).
- 维权网, “四川珙县访民余凤连在公安部遭暴力截访后已被当地公安刑拘” (September 30, 2020): wqw2010.blogspot.com
- 维权网 Issue-131 mainland political-prisoner roster (August 2026).
Media profile & archive: Yu Fenglian (余凤连) — Media Profile & Archive