Yang Xia

Extra Bio Info:

Yang Xia, female, born on 29 January, 1970, was a native of Weicheng District of Weifang City.

According to the judgment published by China Judgments Online (September 21, 2017) and HRWF Prisoner Database (China) , the police of Weifang City, Shandong Province arrested Yang Xia and two other Christians from The Church of Almighty God who were meeting at the intersection of Weizhou Road and Heng’an Street in Fangzi District of Weifang City on October 17, 2016.

Items containing information about belief in God like paper notes, memory cards, players, and notebooks had been searched out from them. On November 4, 2016, they three were criminally detained by the Weifang Municipal Public Security Bureau Kuiwen Branch at Weifang Detention Center. The public prosecution authorities charged that Yang Xia’s actions constituted a crime because when she acted as a church leader, she organized and participated in worship meetings, copied articles and videos containing information on belief in God to other Christians by memory cards and Mp5 players, and organized Christians to write articles about their experiences. On August 9, 2017, the Kuiwen District People’s Court of Weifang City sentenced Yang Xia imprisonment of 8 years on the charge of using a xie jiao organization to undermine the enforcement of the law and fined each of them 50,000 RMB (about 7,300 USD). Yang Xia was subsequently escorted to the Shandong Women’s Prison to serve her prison term and she remains in custody to date. According to sources, she was detained at a transformation through education center in Weifang City.