(Minghui.org) Ms. Ma Qin and her husband drove home at around 7 p.m. on March 28, 2021 after their son’s engagement party. As soon as she stepped out of the car, a police officer pushed Ms. Ma to the ground and held her in a chokehold. Her glasses were broken and her face was injured after striking the ground.
The police spent the next eight hours ransacking Ms. Ma’s home without a search or arrest warrant. They later issued a search warrant after the fact.
Ms. Ma, a 52-year-old resident of Pingdu City, Shandong Province, was taken to the Taishanlu Police Station in the middle of the night and put on criminal detention the next day. During her 28 days of detention at the police station, she was interrogated four times, mostly by Liu Jie of the Domestic Security Office, a man in his 30s, and another man in his 60s.
The officers asked Ms. Ma about how she escaped from police custody eleven years ago during the early morning of August 10, 2010, hours after she was arrested for practicing Falun Gong at the school where she worked. Falun Gong is a spiritual and meditation discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999. She refused to answer their questions.
While Ms. Ma was still held at the police station, her son went there to ask the officers to return the seal of his private company. The police tried to push him out of the lobby and one officer shouted at him, “I’m the law!” When Ms. Ma’s son resisted, the police grabbed his collar and pushed him into a solitary confinement cell.
Ms. Ma happened to witness the police brutality toward her son when she went to the lobby to use the restroom. Worried about the safety of her family, she had nightmares every evening since then and often shouted “Don’t arrest my son!”
Upon learning about their son’s arrest, Ms. Ma’s husband called the mayor’s hotline. Although the police agreed to release their son, they forced the younger man to report to the police station every day for the next few days.
On April 26, Ms. Ma was transferred to the Chengyang Detention Center. She was summoned by both the police and procuratorate.
When her family went to the Pingdu City Procuratorate two days later to submit her Power of Attorney, the receptionist refused to reveal which prosecutor was in charge of her case, saying that her family didn’t have the right to know.
After 14 days of detention at the Chengyang Detention Center, Ms. Ma was transferred to the Qingdao City No. 2 Detention Center, where she remains to this day.
When her lawyer visited her at the detention center on June 22, 2021, Ms. Ma said that her memory had significantly declined in the past few months and she could barely remember anything.
Ms. Ma’s husband also frequented the police station, trying to secure her release. The police revealed that they had put Ms. Ma on the wanted list after she escaped from custody eleven years ago. They said it’s not possible for her to have escaped while wearing handcuffs and shackles and they are now trying to find out who let her go.
The police also said that they don’t have any evidence that Ms. Ma has violated the law, but they are looking into her case while holding her in custody. They implied that Ms. Ma’s husband and son should feel grateful, as they could have been arrested and detained themselves for their possible involvement in Ms. Ma’s case.
Officer Li Chunmin told Ms. Ma’s husband that the order to arrest her came from the authorities in Qingdao City, who had instructed them to clear up all unresolved cases.
Ms. Ma’s husband also learned that the police had been monitoring their daily activities and phone calls for a long time before arresting her. Even drones have been used to monitor them.
Ms. Ma’s son was scheduled to get married in May. He has decided to postpone his wedding due to his mother’s detention.
A Well-regarded Teacher
Ms. Ma, a middle school teacher, suffered from psoriasis for years. Nothing helped relieve the painful skin condition, and she once attempted suicide by taking sleeping pills. She survived, only to face more health troubles in 2004 when a tumor grew on her leg. It caused excruciating pain to her. She tried many treatments, but none had much effect. After hearing about Falun Gong’s health benefits, Ms. Ma learned the practice in 2004 and was surprised to find that the tumor disappeared in three days. Her many other ailments, including psoriasis, lumbar spondylosis, frozen shoulder and gastrointestinal disease were all gone.
Living by Falun Gong’s principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance, Ms. Ma stopped taking gifts from the parents of her students, even though it is commonplace in China for parents to gift teachers in exchange for more favorable treatment of their children. She asked her husband to drive her around over the weekends to return the gifts that those parents dropped off at her home.
“You don’t need to give me any gifts or treat me with anything. I will take good care of each student,” she said to the parents.
Ms. Ma’s family overheard their neighbors comment more than once to her students’ parents who came looking for her, “This is Ms. Ma’s home. She’s a good teacher who treats her students fairly. She does not take gifts.”
Soon, the parents who lined up outside Ms. Ma’s home to give her gifts disappeared.
One student’s father always tried to give Ms. Ma cherries that he grew himself. “You are such a nice person. My daughter is so lucky to have such a great teacher as you. I will never forget it,” he said.
Related reports:
Failing to Arrest an Outstanding Teacher, Police in Sandong Province Arrest Her Husband Instead
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Category: Accounts of Persecution
