In retaliation for his blog posts exposing fraud and corruption by a local party official, as well as other government criticism, Chen Jieren was arrested and held in criminal detention on charges of bribery and racketeering. His case went to trial in late 2019. In April 2020, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison and fined over 7 million yuan for “denigrating” the Chinese Communist Party, after being convicted on the charges.