(Minghui.org) A Heze City, Shandong Province, resident was recently sentenced to 16 months and fined 5,000 yuan for her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Ma Xiuqin, a 73-year-old retired teacher, was arrested at 7 a.m. on July 11, 2024, during a police sweep of local Falun Gong practitioners. The police interrogated her at the Beicheng Police Station during the day and then took her to the Heze City Detention Center in the early evening. Although the guards initially refused to admit her due to her high blood pressure, the police forced them to take her, saying, “We have been working so hard since 4 a.m., just to arrest these Falun Gong practitioners.”
Ms. Ma’s blood pressure remained high. She was unable to walk on her own or even sit up after using the toilet. Upon hearing about her situation, her family went to the Beicheng Police Station and asked that she be released on bail, but their request was denied.
In order to sentence Ms. Ma, the police reopened her case from 2020, when she was arrested for giving out a Falun Gong pamphlet. She was detained for a few days back then and released on house arrest. When submitting her latest case to the procuratorate in 2024, the police accused her of “trying to escape” and fabricated witness accounts to frame her.
The Yuncheng County Court held a hearing of Ms. Ma’s case on November 28, 2024. Her lawyer entered a not-guilty plea for her. He pointed out that no law ever criminalizes Falun Gong in China and that there was no evidence to support the charge of her “undermining law enforcement,” which is the standard pretext used to sentence Falun Gong practitioners. Yet the judge still sentenced Ms. Ma to prison on December 5, 2024.
Ms. Ma appealed to the Heze City Intermediate Court, which held a hearing on March 10, 2025. The judge ruled to uphold her original verdict on March 27, 2025, and ordered her to serve time, despite the fact that she was already incapacitated and relied on others for care. She is still held at the Heze City Detention Center at the time of writing. It’s not clear whether the authorities plan to take her to prison.
In addition to Ms. Ma, two other practitioners who were arrested on the same day have also been sentenced by the Yuncheng County Court: Ms. Liu Qiuxia was given a term of one and a half years, and Ms. Wang Xiangling received one year.
Ms. Ma began to practice Falun Gong in 1997. Many of her ailments soon disappeared. After the persecution started in 1999, she was arrested more than ten times, including one arrest on the day of her mother’s funeral. She also served a three-year forced labor camp term, was forced to live away from home to hide from the police, and was extorted over 100,000 yuan by the authorities.
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