Elderly Couple Torn Apart, Husband Sentenced for Telling People about Falun Gong at a Farmer’s Market
Mr. Ma Weishan and Ms. Wang Yue submitting their criminal complaint on May 25, 2015 against Jiang Zemin, the former head of the communist regime who ordered the persecution of Falun Gong in 1999.
After living in fear for two decades because of the persecution of Falun Gong, Mrs. Wang Yue, 85, passed away on August 24, 2022. Her husband Mr. Ma Weishan, 82, is still serving a five-year term for his faith in Falun Gong.
Mrs. Wang was a retired teacher in Sanhe City, Hebei Province. Her husband used to work as a village officer and a manager at a private company. He was arrested on April 22, 2014 for sending text messages about Falun Gong. Ma was then sentenced to a five-year term by the Sanhe City Court on November 5, 2015. The Langfang City Intermediate Court rejected his appeal on May 13, 2016.
Ma was later released on parole, only to be arrested again on September 28, 2018, after he was reported for talking to people about Falun Gong at a farmers’ market. Despite his high blood pressure, the local detention center transferred him to the Jidong Prison days later to serve out his five-year term.
Ma’s incarceration dealt Wang a heavy blow. She fell into depression and her health quickly declined. Suffering from persistent high fever and diabetes, she was hospitalized in July 2022, but the doctors were unable to cure her. In her final days, she kept asking about her husband’s condition. Wang often said, “Why hasn’t Weishan come back home yet?”
Past Persecution of Ma
Since the onset of the persecution of Falun Gong in 1999, Ma has been arrested five times for his faith.
Ma was first arrested in November 1999 for going to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong and was given two years of forced labor. At the Gaoyang Forced Labor Camp, he was given meager rations and forced to do over ten hours of hard labor every day. The guards once handcuffed him to a water pipe outdoors and left him to freeze.
Ma was arrested again in March 2003. He held a hunger strike for seven days and was released. Seven days later, however, the authorities took him back into custody at a brainwashing center. The mental distress took a toll on his health. He fell ill soon after and remained in poor health for a few years.
On February 25, 2006, Ma was arrested again. He was sentenced to three years at Jidong Prison and released in 2009.
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Based on an original report from Minghui.org
