Mr. Ma Shutian, male, 58, resident of Zheng Village, Beihe Town, Dingxing County, Baoding City, Hebei Province.

Mr. Ma started to practice Falun Gong in 1996. His whole family regained their health after practicing Falun Gong. After July 1999, the local government led by the Party Secretary of Beihe Town, Hu Fengge, Mayor of Beihe Town, Tang Xiuqin, and others, confiscated practitioners’ homes, extorted money from them, and detained them in a detention center. When Mr. Ma was detained, he was beaten and tortured. In June 2000, his wife, Mr. Zhang Yumei died due to persecution.

In July 2000, he went to Beijing to appeal to the government to stop the persecution of Falun Gong. He was arrested and escorted back to his hometown. In the Beihe Police Station, the police beat him with a three-inch-wide steel club crippled both of his legs. After he escaped from the detention center, he was forced to become homeless for a long time to avoid further persecution. After he finally came home, the police often went to his home to harass him and extort money from him. They extorted more than 10,000 yuan from him. His health severely deteriorated as a result of the persecution. One day in 2001, a man named Wang came to his home to hound him. He passed away the next day.

type=Case, Death; location=Hebei,Baoding