Throughout the 1990s, Li Heping began advocating for human rights and civil liberties. He openly criticised the policies of the Chinese regime and its religious restrictions. Collaborating with fellow human rights lawyers such as Chen Guangcheng and Gao Zhisheng, as well as dissenters and environmental campaigners, he frequently encountered harassment and intimidation from security forces.

April 2007: During the second trial of Wang Bo's case, a Falun Gong practitioner from Shijiazhuang, Hebei province, Li Heping and five other lawyers from Beijing presented the renowned defence declaration: "Constitution Supremacy, Faith is Innocent." This was a pioneering instance of Chinese legal professionals mounting a comprehensive and systematic challenge to the government’s position on Falun Gong from a jurisprudential standpoint, marking a significant advancement in the legal defence of Falun Gong practitioners in China.

Before the trial, Radio Free Asia reported that in early April 2007, Li Heping fell victim to a kidnapping by unidentified assailants. He suffered a beating and was stripped of his laptop's hard drive and mobile phone SIM card. The assailants duplicated the contents of his laptop and coerced him into leaving Beijing. After roughly six hours, Li Heping was deserted on the periphery of Beijing, from where he managed to make his way back home.

28 September 2007: the Beijing Public Security Bureau pressured Li Heping and his family to exit the city. The subsequent day, he and his family endured a 12-hour detention by plainclothes police officers. During this ordeal, Li was assaulted with electric batons and subsequently left in a forest. Upon his return home, he found his lawyer’s license missing, and his computer's data had been erased.

6 March 2008: In the morning, Li Heping was caught in a car crash while escorting his son to school in the vicinity of the Eastern Fourth Ring Road. The collision left the trunk of his car significantly impaired, having been struck by a police vehicle. Li Heping attested to being pursued by this police car, which impacted him with its siren active, resulting in a strain to his back post-collision.

2008: Li Heping was honoured with the National Endowment for Democracy's Democracy Award for Religious Freedom by the United States, an accolade presented to him by President Bush at the White House. Furthermore, he was the recipient of the Human Rights Award from the Council of Europe and the "European Lawyer Human Rights Award" from the European Bar Association. However, his attempts to venture abroad to accept these recognitions were thwarted by governmental impediments.

30 May 2010: Tang Jitian, a fellow human rights lawyer in Beijing, found himself under house arrest enforced by officers from the Beijing Public Security Bureau and two security personnel. Later that day, Tang Jitian managed to leave his residence accompanied by a friend. The following day, Li Heping, holding keys to Tang Jitian’s residence, discovered the lock intentionally obstructed. While seeking assistance from a locksmith, Li Heping found himself in custody, accused by the police of theft and subject to interrogation that afternoon. Years later, Li Heping disclosed to international media the heavy surveillance imposed on him and his family at that time, noting the constant shadowing by at least four police officers wherever he went.

July 2015: Li Heping became one of the initial detainees during the notorious 709 Crackdown, taken into custody on the 10th of July. Subsequently, in that same month, lawyers Cai Ying and Ma Lianshun, alongside Li Heping's family members, approached the Tianjin Public Security Bureau seeking information about Li Heping's status, who had by then been unaccounted for for over two weeks. Lawyer Ma Lianshun reported that the bureau's entrance was stringently guarded, with numerous police and military personnel present. Although they managed to enter the reception area, security personnel barred their entry. When they disclosed their intent to locate a Beijing-detained lawyer, they were directed to an internal telephone line. Nonetheless, their calls to the national security division were consistently rebutted, with responses limiting their role to providing procedural advice and refuting any involvement in detention of specific individuals.

Li Heping’s family members proceeded to make enquiries with various departments, yet encountered a uniform lack of acknowledgment regarding his arrest. The responses suggested that the responsibility for his detention could lie with any one of the 18 districts or over 20 sub-branches within Tianjin, rendering the task of pinpointing Li Heping's location an insurmountable challenge.

With no tangible information on Li Heping's condition, his family and legal team opted to lodge a formal complaint regarding his unlawful detention at the Public Security Bureau's petition office. The officer they spoke to with merely acknowledged the filing without furnishing any substantial details. Subsequently, the group proceeded to the Tianjin Procuratorate Complaint Centre to raise grievances against the police’s illicit conduct concerning Li Heping’s case. However, the presiding prosecutor declared that without a case number or a designated responsible unit, the system could not process their complaint, effectively stonewalling any potential oversight.

3 August 2015: Wang Qiaoling, Li Heping’s spouse, initiated legal proceedings against nine media bodies, including Xinhua and People's Daily, for their defamatory publications regarding Li Heping, which effectively passed judgment without a fair trial.

4 August 2015: In response, Wang Qiaoling was requested by local law enforcement to attend the police station. A few days later, on the 6th of August, following the release of several articles about her husband, Wang Qiaoling was detained and interrogated for five hours by the Tianjin and Beijing police, accused of inciting discord and provocation. Concurrently, a group of petitioners from various districts of Beijing rallied in a local park, displaying banners calling for the liberation of the detained human rights lawyers including Li Heping.

17 February 2016: Lawyers Cai Ying and Ma Lianshun attempted to visit Li Heping at the Tianjin No. 1 Detention Centre. Upon their arrival, they were abruptly informed by the facility's officials that Li Heping had dismissed them. Requests for written evidence of this dismissal were denied, and as a result, the lawyers were precluded from meeting with their client. It came to light that Zhao Wei, Li Heping’s legal assistant, who was also incarcerated at a Tianjin detention establishment, had been subjected to a similar predicament.

May 2016: Wang Qiaoling disclosed that Li Heping was subjected to severe restraints involving handcuffs and leg irons linked by a chain during his detention at the Tianjin No. 1 Detention Center. In addition to the physical constraints, Li Heping was coerced into ingesting medication and endured physical assaults. The police imposed sleep deprivation and relentlessly interrogated him, which included compulsion to remain standing for 15 hours daily without movement. Furthermore, under duress, Li Heping was compelled to sign a pledge to refrain from engaging with media interviews.

18 August 2016: Only one day after relocating to a new residence, Li Heping's family faced coercion from their landlord to terminate their lease agreement. The landlord informed Wang Qiaoling via telephone that the village committee had issued an eviction of the premise’s tenants. The family's initial displacement stemmed from a compulsory termination of their three-year tenancy. During the move, individuals assisting Wang Qiaoling reported that the moving team with three trucks was followed by a vehicle believed to belong to national security operatives.

Early December 2016: the Tianjin Municipal Procuratorate initiated a case against Li Heping, accusing him of subverting state authority. Wang Qiaoling appointed Ma Lianshun as the defence lawyer for her husband. Lawyer Ma Lianshun reported that he was systematically denied any opportunity to confer with Li Heping, who was placed in solitary confinement.

22 March 2017: Experts from the UN Human Rights Office issued a formal communication to China (UA CHN 3/2017), concerning the detention situation of Li Heping.

28 April 2017: Experts from the UN Human Rights Office issued a formal communication to China concerning the situation of Wang Qiaoling (UA CHN 5/2017), who faced multiple forms of persecution in her relentless advocacy for Li Heping's rights and freedom.

29 April, 2017: Wang Qiaoling disclosed that Li Heping had been covertly tried by the Tianjin No. 2 Intermediate Court on the 25th of April. The sentence handed down to Li Heping was a three-year prison term with a four-year suspension, during which his political rights were also revoked for the same duration. Li Heping received the judgment without lodging an appeal.

Simultaneously, officers from the national security bureau, along with the state-appointed lawyer for Li Heping, gathered at Wang Qiaoling’s residence. Their proposition for Wang Qiaoling to go to Tianjin for a reunion with Li Heping was adamantly rejected by her. She posited that Li Heping ought to be free given his suspended sentence. Her concern was that a journey to Tianjin might impede the realisation of his freedom.

Afternoon, 9 May 2017: Li Heping was released and reunited with his family members after a separation of nearly two years. Li Heping revealed that subsequent to the sentencing on the 28 April 2017, rather than being liberated, he was secreted away to an undisclosed site under the surveillance of state security, ostensibly due to his weak and feeble condition. During a ten-day period, he was inadequately nourished and accommodated before being permitted to return to his family. Despite this, upon his return, Li Heping's aged appearance was starkly evident, a far cry from his previous demeanour.

7 June 2017: Subsequent to his release, Li Heping had been designated a “community correction personnel,” meaning he required judicial authorisation for travel beyond his hometown. In June, Li Heping, alongside his brother Li Chunfu, also a lawyer in the 709 Crackdown, planned to visit Henan Province to celebrate their mother's birthday. Prior to the journey, Li Heping sought approval from the judicial office, but was met with hindrances. A police officer there labelled Li Heping a “criminal,” and the judicial office declined his travel request.

Despite this, Li Heping and Li Chunfu took a friend’s vehicle to depart Beijing and directly headed to their hometown. Before reaching their parents’ residence, they stopped at the home of detained human rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong’s parents. Jiang Tianyong and Li Heping were former classmates and close friends. After midnight, Li Heping and his brother arrived at their parents’ home in Luoshan County to meet with their parents, who had been deprived of their sons’ presence for two years. The following day, Li Chunfu was summoned to the police station for interrogation when he went into the county town to pick up his son.

August 2017: The Chaoyang District Judicial Bureau of Beijing issued a “Community Correction Warning Decision” to Li Heping. The notice reprimanded Li Heping for his unauthorised departure from Beijing during his community correction term, citing a contravention of the “Beijing Municipal Community Correction Implementation Rules.”

12 February 2018: Two individuals purporting to be from the judicial office sought to meet with Li Heping at his home. They were rebuffed by Wang Qiaoling. Later, Li Heping received a communication from the judicial office, stating that he was due to report to them that day.

Wang Qiaoling strongly criticised the frequent attempts by judicial office personnel to exert control over Li Heping under the guise of “community correction,” which caused regular reporting to the office on various issues, or even uninvited home visits, which disrupted their domestic life. She reiterated that Li Heping’s conviction was a miscarriage of justice and that the authorities continued to impose undue pressure post-release.

May 2018: the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Justice issued an administrative penalty notice to Li Heping, indicating their intent to rescind his legal practice certificate as a repercussion for his criminal conviction of inciting subversion of state power. Li Heping initially considered contesting this through an oral hearing, unwilling to give up his right to defend.

16 May 2018: On the eve of the hearing, Li Heping published a statement declining participation. He contended that his legal endeavours to enhance judicial integrity and combat torture had been mischaracterised as subversion. He criticised the systemic employment of torture in the 709 Crackdown and regarded the hearing as a futile gesture, given his belief that the judicial system had strayed from its righteous path to become a mere façade. Consequently, on 17 May 2018, his licence to practise law was formally revoked.

20 February 2019: Li Heping’s son, Li Zeyuan, encountered his third rejection when seeking a passport from immigration authorities. The Beijing Public Security Bureau, referencing the Ministry of Public Security, provided their reason for the denial to Li Heping’s conviction of inciting subversion of state power, which rendered Li Zeyuan subject to internal restrictions.

29 April 2023: Li Heping and human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang received an unanticipated demand from their landlord to vacate their property, presumed to be influenced by government pressure. They faced abrupt utility cut-offs, despite timely rent payments. Upon refusing to vacate, the landlord resorted to aggression, damaging their property. When the authorities were summoned, they sided with the landlord, advising Li Heping to pursue legal recourse.

9 June 2023: Li Heping encountered an impediment at Chengdu's Tianfu Airport by border control as he, alongside his wife and daughter, attempted to visit Thailand. Those officers justified their obstruction by alleging that Li Heping’s departure from the China’s territory may pose national security threat.

14 June 2023: Subsequently, Wang Qiaoling broadcasted a video via Twitter, describing their barred attempt to depart for Thailand from Chengdu Tianfu International Airport. Their travel documents and tickets were seized, and a notice of travel restriction was read to them, directing them to liaise with an official in Beijing. The provided contact numbers, however, were unresponsive.