For over ten years, Sichuan resident Yu Fenglian has been petitioning on issues regarding seniority benefits and forest land ownership. She was sued by the Gong County Procuratorate for “disrupting government order” and subsequently the Gong County Court judge actively contacted her to find a guarantor for her bail pending trial.
Yu Fenglian expressed, “Once sued, it should be handled according to the law, yet the judge also asked me to find a guarantor for my bail pending trial. It all feels absurd!”
Recently, Yu Fenglian received the indictment from the Gong County Procuratorate. According to the indictment, since 2016, she has repeatedly petitioned at provincial and national levels on issues related to seniority and forest land. Although the Sichuan High Court concluded the grievances raised by Yu Fenglian on October 13, 2021, after she continued petitioning over 60 times at higher levels, disrupting public order and causing significant disruptions to the local government’s regular workflow, especially since 2025 when she protested during sensitive time periods using slogans and kneeling in non-reception places, severely disrupting public order leading to chaos.
The case was transferred for review and prosecution by the Gong County Public Security Bureau on July 21, 2025, but the Procuratorate delayed the prosecution until July 28, 2026.
In response to the charges, Yu Fenglian refuted each point and completed her defense statement. Citing Article 172 and Article 175 of the Criminal Procedure Law, she argued that the statutory maximum period for reviewing and prosecuting a case is only six and a half months, with no legal provisions for extensions or delays, making the handling of this case severely overdue and procedurally unlawful. She also claimed that the entire process did not follow the law in terms of questioning the defendant, verifying the time, place, and specific illegal acts alleged, and relied solely on concocted materials to prosecute, constituting an abuse of public prosecution power, targeting citizens defending their rights, wasting judicial resources, and giving rise to wrongful cases.
The defense statement stated that the petition actions arising from disputes over land ownership, seniority benefits, and lawful defense were evidence-based, without any subjective criminal intent, thus not constituting disturbance of public order; therefore, does not amount to provoking trouble and causing disturbances as alleged.
Regarding one of the charges, the defense statement claimed that on August 11, 2025, Yu Fenglian’s brother, Yu Fangtang, was violently assaulted by multiple individuals at a rights protection site, leading to multiple rib fractures (classified as minor injuries). Despite the police refusing to reassess the injuries, declining to register a case, refraining from taking any action, abruptly ending the investigation, and not issuing any documents, it allowed the perpetrators of intentional harm to escape accountability. This was seen as a clear case of judicial distortion and retaliatory action rather than seeking justice.
Yu Fenglian told a reporter, “Since June 18 of last year when I submitted materials to the 12th Central Inspection Team in Chengdu, Sichuan, I was violently kidnapped and injured en route. Upon return, dozens of individuals hired by the authorities have been surveilling me around the clock for over a year, physically attacking me during this period while the police turned a blind eye to my reports. I have been under constant surveillance and restricted from leaving the area. The real troublemakers inciting disturbances, illegally monitoring, and intimidating the public are the idle personnel hired by the government, shielded by the police, who are inverting right and wrong, blaming the victims.”
On August 4 this year, a judge named Wang from the Gong County Criminal Court contacted Yu Fenglian, instructing her to follow bail procedures and provide a guarantor. As she works in Chengdu and finds it inconvenient to appear in court, the judge suggested that they could collect the materials in person. Yu Fenglian made it clear that she could not find a guarantor and questioned the validity of the procedure.
She recounted being coerced in 2020 to have her family arrange for bail, enduring a year and a half of restricted freedom without resolution to the matter. Yu Fenglian expressed dissatisfaction with Judge Wang over the judiciary’s failure to restrain unlawful conduct from relevant parties and urged a swift resolution to her own situation.
Expressing dismay, Yu Fenglian said, “I have committed no crime yet the procuratorate accuses me of one, they are set on continuing their serious illegal actions (forcible bail) to frame me and keep me under control locally. The next step is the court trial, they are capable of anything nefarious!”