He Fangmei sentenced to five years and six months in prison

In a verdict dated 23 October 2024, the Huixian Municipal Court in Xinxiang, Henan Province, sentenced woman human rights defender He Fangmei to one year and nine months in prison for “bigamy” and four years for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”. The court decided that she will serve a total of five years and six months. Her sentence is scheduled to end on 1 January 2027.

He Fangmei has been in detention since October 2020, after she was disappeared in front of a local government building in Huixian where she was conducting a protest. Her two young daughters, who are now approximately seven-and-a-half and three years old, had been kept in a local psychiatric hospital until some time in April of this year when they were taken from the hospital to unknown locations. Their family has not been able to locate them nor obtain information about their well-being despite multiple attempts at contacting local authorities. The children’s father, Li Xin, is also serving a five-year sentence.

Front Line Defenders strongly condemns the verdict and sentence handed down to He Fangmei and believes it is solely an act of retaliation against her peaceful and legitimate human rights work. Front Line Defenders urges the relevant authorities in China to promptly quash the conviction of He Fangmei and calls for her immediate release. The organisation is also deeply concerned by the apparent disappearance of the woman human rights defender’s two daughters, one of whom lives with disabilities. Front Line Defenders urges the local authorities in Huixian to immediately reveal their whereabouts and ensure that the children are returned safely to the custody of appropriate close family members in accordance with He Fangmei’s wishes.

Almost a year after woman human rights defender He Fangmei was tried in Huixian in Xinxiang, in the Henan province in March 2022, a verdict still has not been announced. Independent human rights monitors, quoting credible sources, have reported that the family-appointed lawyer was able to meet He Fangmei for the first time at the Xinxiang Municipal Detention Centre shortly before the Lunar New Year in January 2023. The woman human rights defender apparently had no legal representation during the trial, as the family-appointed lawyer found out about the trial only after it had already been concluded. The court in Huixian also later denied the lawyer’s request to review the case files, on the basis that the trial has already taken place and that the panel of judges have already concluded their deliberations. The court asked the lawyer to submit his opinions in writing.

The woman human rights defender He Fangmei also told the lawyer that during her trial, the court told her that her husband Li Xin was convicted for the same charges as the ones she is facing and is sentenced to five years. However, the court did not give her a copy of the verdict and only “flipped through it” in front of her briefly during the trial.

He Fangmei’s two young daughters are now being kept at a psychiatric hospital. The younger daughter, who was born in a psychiatric hospital in 2021 where the defender was detained, has not been allowed to obtain her household registration on the pretext that the birth certificate has not been provided to the registration authority because it is with the defender. The defender’s eight-year-old son is reportedly attending school, but has been placed in foster care with a rural family, separated from his mother and sisters.

Woman human rights defender He Fangmei (何方美) has been disappeared for three months after conducting a protest in front of a local government office in Huixian, Xinxiang, Henan province on 9 October 2020. He Fangmei’s husband, Li Xin, has been uncontactable since he was taken away in Beijing by individuals believed to be Huixian local police five days after his wife’s disappearance. He Fangmei is pregnant and a mother of two young children, one of whom is disabled and requires regular medical treatment.

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He Fangmei (何方美) is a health rights defender who advocates for vaccine safety and for access to remedies for victims of defective vaccines. She began seeking accountability and compensation after her daughter was paralysed with a neurological disease after receiving defective vaccines in March 2018 when the child was ten months old. She then co-founded "Home for Vaccine Babies" (疫苗宝宝之家), an informal network of families whose young children became seriously ill or disabled as a result of receiving defective vaccines. She and her husband Li Xin travel to Beijing frequently to seek medical care for their daughter and to petition government offices in the capital to press for State and corporate accountability for the harms suffered by individuals who received defective vaccines and their families. In March 2019, she was arrested while fundraising on the streets of Beijing along with other families affected by defective vaccines. She was then taken back to Henan and detained until she was put on trial in November 2019 for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”. In January 2020, she was released after the local prosecutors withdrew the charges against her.

On 2 October 2020, He Fangmei went to the Huixian municipal government office and splashed black ink at the front entrance, to protest the government’s failure to provide her remedies for her daughter’s illness and compensation for her detention in 2019. She was also protesting against the close police surveillance and restrictions of movement against her and her family which obstructed their travel to Beijing, where her daughter seeks better quality medical care. The local public security office issued an order of 10-day administrative detention against her, but decided to suspend its enforcement because she is pregnant.

On 9 October 2020, He Fangmei went to the same government office and splashed black paint at the front entrance. She then became uncontactable some time between 9 and 10 October 2020. She is an active Twitter user and acquaintances took over the administration of her account after she went missing and began posting updates and concerns since 10 October about her apparent enforced disappearance.

In the subsequent weeks, acquaintances and families of victims of defective vaccines made multiple phone calls to the local public security office, but they either went unanswered or the person who answered said it was the wrong number. Information posted on her Twitter account several days after her disappearance and attributed to her husband Li Xin, who was in Beijing, suggests that He Fangmei may be under de facto house arrest in Huixian. Local officials were quoted as saying her two young children are being “taken care of.” In the late afternoon of 14 October 2020, Li Xin also became uncontactable, according to those who attempted to reach him on his mobile. To date, there has been no confirmed information about He Fangmei and her immediate family’s exact whereabouts and well-being.

On 26 October 2020, concerned individuals made phone calls to He Fangmei’s family and were told that they had no information of her whereabouts after she went missing; the family have not heard from Li Xin either since he was taken from Beijing back to Huixian; and they have not received any official notice from the police concerning He Fangmei or Li Xin.

In November 2020, families affected by defective vaccines went to local government offices in Huixian to inquire about He Fangmei’s situation but were not able to obtain any information. Around the same time, these families launched a social media and letter writing campaign to press the relevant authorities to reveal He Fangmei’s whereabouts. Some of these families have been interrogated by public security officers who warned them not to engage in the campaign.

Front Line Defenders is extremely concerned by the lack of information regarding the whereabouts and well-being, and the apparent enforced disappearance of He Fangmei, her husband, and her two young children, especially in light of her pregnancy and her daughter’s medical conditions. It believes her and her family’s disappearance and the harassment they faced prior to it are reprisals for He Fangmei’s peaceful and legitimate work in promoting and defending human rights, including the right to health.