On the night of September 30, 2001, Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Yuan Jiang was arrested and detained in Lanzhou City, Gansu Province. He was tortured for nearly two months before managing to escape detention. He initially went to practitioner Mr. Wang Zhijun's home.  Mr. Yuan finally ended up staying in an apartment owned by the daughter of Mr. Yu Jinfang and Ms. Xia Fuying. Mr. Wen Shixue also helped him. However, as a result of the brutal torture that he had been subjected to earlier, Mr. Yuan died on November 9, 2001.

Later, the Lanzhou City police arrested Mr. Yu's daughter and son-in-law, along with their maid, none of whom are practitioners, and interrogated them by means of torture. Still later, they abducted Mr. Yu, Ms. Xia and Mr. Wang. Ms. Xia and Mr. Wang were eventually released on bail. The police ransacked Mr. Yu’s daughter's apartment and seized some personal property. In March of 2002, the police arrested Mr. Wen. In mid-November of 2002, without any legal documents to support their actions, the police arrested Ms. Xia. again and sent her to Lanzhou 2^nd Decention Center.

In early December of 2002, the four practitioners who helped Yuan were secretly tried in the Chenguan District Court in Lanzhou City. The guards did not allow public attendance of the trial. The Court sentenced them using the charge of "protecting criminals." Ms. Xia was sentenced to three years in prison. Mr. Wang was sentenced to five years in prison and has been detained at Lanzhou City's Siguoyuan Detention Center. Mr. Yu was sentenced to five years in prison and has been detained at Chenguan District Detention Center. Mr. Wen was sentenced to eight years and six months and has been detained at Lanzhou 2^nd Detention Center.