Profile
Ma Heping was a Hengyang City resident documented in Asia Watch’s 1992 account of administrative detention following the 1989 democracy movement in Hunan.
1989 case
Anthems of Defeat: Crackdown in Hunan Province, 1989–92 described Ma as 29 years old and unemployed at the time. The report said that during the 1989 democracy movement he participated in demonstrations and other protest activity in Hengyang. Some descriptions in the source reproduce the authorities’ accusatory language and are not presented here as adjudicated facts.
Asia Watch reported that Ma was arrested in June 1989 and that in November the Hengyang City Public Security Bureau imposed three years of re-education through labor. Re-education through labor was an administrative detention measure; this record should not be normalized into a criminal court sentence.
Status and evidence limits
Current status: unknown. The evidence reviewed here does not establish a confirmed release date, detention facility, later activity, or present whereabouts. The nominal term must not be used to infer release.
Source
Asia Watch / Human Rights Watch, Anthems of Defeat: Crackdown in Hunan Province, 1989–92 (May 1992), Appendix I-D, “Re-education through Labor.”