(Minghui.org) A 53-year-old Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province, resident was released on February 25, 2024, after completing a one-year prison sentence for her faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
Ms. Ma Xiujuan served time in the Xinzhou City Detention Center in her hometown in Shanxi Province. Her ordeal began on November 21, 2019 when she was arrested in Shanxi while visiting her parents there. She was released on bail 37 days later, and a formal arrest warrant was issued in May 2021. To avoid further persecution, she went into hiding and was put on the wanted list. For details of this part of her persecution, see the related report listed at the end of this article.
Ms. Ma was arrested again on April 1, 2023, after being reported for talking to people about Falun Gong in Nanying Village, Nanying Town, Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province. Vice village secretary Li Zhenguo and officers from the Nanying Town Police Station soon arrived to arrest her.
During interrogation at the police station, Ms. Ma refused to have her picture taken or reveal her identity. The police drove her to their supervising agency, the Gaocheng District Police Department, and requested that she be sent to a lockup. The police department, however, refused to take her, due to lack of information about her identity. She was then driven back to the Nanying Town Police Station.
Chief Zhang Zhitao (+86-13832350110, badge number 013757) instructed a heavy-build, six-foot-tall officer surname Li to savagely beat Ms. Ma. She yelled, “Police are beating people!”
Li smeared Falun Gong as he kicked and punched Ms. Ma, and used a police club to poke her all over her body. He didn’t stop until he became exhausted. Ms. Ma still refused to disclose her identity, and Zhang called in another officer to try to deceive her into revealing her name. This second officer also failed to make her submit.
Zhang then instructed several officers to restrain Ms. Ma in a torture device and beat her hard with clubs. She screamed in pain. The six-foot-tall officer who had beaten her before said he no longer had the heart to keep torturing her. One other officer however kept going. Despite the pain, Ms. Ma still did not give in.
The police kept torturing her and did not give her any food or water to drink. She had bruises all over her body. The police then took her to the Shijiazhuang City Hospital for a physical examination. They gave her a moniker Zhen-Shan-Mei (meaning truthfulness-compassion-beauty) for the purpose of the checkup. She told the doctors how the police had tortured her and deprived her of food and water.
The police took her back to the police station after the checkup. They later realized that she resembled someone in the wanted-list database. They looked it up and found out that she was indeed the person wanted by the Xinzhou City Procuratorate in Shanxi Province. They contacted the police in Xinzhou.
Captain Guo Zhihong, who initially arrested Ms. Ma on November 21, 2019, traveled to Hebei Province on April 4, 2023 and extradited her to Shanxi Province. Chief Zhang of the Nanying Town Police Station in Hebei Province was given 1,000 yuan reward for reporting her.
During the admission at the Xinzhou City Detention Center in Shanxi Province, the female guards took some photos of Ms. Ma upon noticing bruises everywhere on her body.
The Xinzhou City Court tried Ms. Ma on May 19, 2023 and sentenced her to one year in prison with a 5,000-yuan fine at a later date. Her bank account was frozen as soon as the verdict was issued.
The 37 days Ms. Ma was in detention following her 2019 arrest was counted towards time already served. She was released on February 25, 2024. A few months later, the court garnished 5,000 yuan from her bank account. It is unclear why the court didn’t do so right after convicting her.
Related Report:
Hebei Woman Arrested After Two Years of Displacement, Faces Prosecution in Nearby Province
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