Going home is not the same as ending the case: after the release of Lin Huang, the case of Xi'an Feng Shui Church still leaves three unresolved legal issues.

On the 5th of September, Xi'an Pastor Yishu returned to his home.Photo released by the Chinese Aid AssociationLi stood next to his family and his long-term detention, which began four years ago from the designated residence surveillance, was finally temporarily interrupted.But this "home photo" did not draw the sentence to the case: the court did not publicly announce the end of the case, the legal status of Yim long years with Fujian is still unclear, and the "fraud" case that had been opened in July 2025 has not been publicly sentenced.

This makes Elias’ release different from “innocence” in the usual sense. A person can leave the detention center while still in an unfinished criminal procedure; family members can reunite without knowing whether the next step will be called, secured, re-arrested or awaiting a verdict. The Feng Shui case has thus entered a stage more difficult to explain than “arrested or released”: coercive measures have changed, but the case itself has no public end.

First question: Since the court has been held, why is there still no public judgment more than a year later?

Public information shows that Yin Long, Yin Huang, and Fuan were arrested on 17 August 2022 for alleged “fraud” and were officially arrested in March

1. In February 2025 a pre-trial meeting was held; on 9 July 2022, a local court in Xi'an opened a trial on the case, but no public verdict has been issued since then.

In April 2025, the compulsory measures of the three were changed and allowed to be held in custody; in November of the same year, they were again taken away while awaiting the trial.The Chinese Aid Association said that Yim was 71 years old at the time and was treated for his deteriorating health. By September 2026, Yimshu was released, while the other two still lacked public justification.

Criminal cases in complex circumstances can be extended in accordance with the law, but for cases that have completed the trial, a long-term absence of a public judge will generate two layers of uncertainty: the defendant can not clearly determine whether he bears criminal responsibility through the verdict, nor can the normal appeal procedure be initiated after receiving the judge; the public can not judge which allegations and evidence the court has finally accepted by the prosecutor.

Second question: Who is the victim of fraud?

The core of the long-standing controversy in the Feng Shui church case is that prosecutors included acts related to church consecration in the allegations of fraud.Report of the China Aid Association’s pre-trial meeting in 2025According to the defense lawyer, among the several alleged victims listed by the prosecutor, one person in court denied that he was a victim and denied fraud. The claim comes from the defense and religious freedom groups, and the courts and prosecutors did not disclose the full evidence publicly, so the outside world could not independently verify the entire case.

But “who is the victim” remains a key factual question for the establishment of fraud crimes. According to the logic of the General Criminal Law, fraud requires a chain of evidence around fraud, fraudulent disposal of property and the resulting loss of property. If the donor knows how the funds are used to the church and voluntarily donated, the prosecutor will need to provide specific evidence in court on how the funds are determined to be delivered as fraudulent.

This is also why many cases of family churches have been concerned in recent years. The devotion, eleventh donation and internal financial management of religious organizations originally belonged to the daily operation of religious communities; when those funds were included in common criminal crimes such as fraud, illegal business, the case dispute shifted from “whether religious organizations are registered” to a more specific criminal law question: under what circumstances voluntary donations within religions are converted into fraudulent property in criminal cases.

Question 3: What is the outcome of the four-year coercive measures after their release?

The case began in August 2022, with designated residence surveillance, formal arrest, seizure, trial, and being taken away again until September

1. Even if each compulsory measure was separately reviewed in criminal proceedings, the cumulative time of four years also meant that the state had a great impact on individual freedoms.

If the court ultimately ruled guilty, the ruling needs to explain the legal relationship between these coercive measures and the facts of the crime; if no prosecution, withdrawal or innocence is made, another question arises: how a person has previously experienced long-term detention, designated residence surveillance and repeated coercive measures should be obtained procedural interpretation and remedy.

The Feng Shui Church itself was identified by the Xi'an civil affairs department as an "illegal social organization" and banned in 2022.Whether or not the Church has completed the registration of civil affairs, and whether the three leaders constitute a fraud crime, are two different legal issues. The former belongs to the category of social organization and religious administration, the latter must meet the constituent criteria of the Criminal Law concerning fraud. Mixing the two together will make the "unregistered" fact actually replace the proof of the facts of specific crimes.

After a home photo, the most important remains the judicial document.

The release is a real and important new development, but it doesn’t automatically answer the most critical questions in the case. The public still needs to see whether the court has made a verdict, whether the case has been revoked, whether the prosecutor’s office has changed the charges, and what legal measures were undertaken for years and Foucault.

From the perspective of the rule of law, a criminal case should eventually end with a verifiable judicial document, rather than replacing it with the conclusion that “the person has returned home.” For Yishu Hyun, home is the end of a phase of physical detention; for the Feng Shui Church case, the true end is still a clear, public, appealable and reviewable legal decision.