{"id":29933,"date":"2025-03-27T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-27T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/csw-yeo.1wp.site\/press\/hui-christian-pastor-sentenced-to-nine-months-in-prison-6453\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T19:13:26","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T18:13:26","slug":"hui-christian-pastor-sentenced-to-nine-months-in-prison-6453","status":"publish","type":"press","link":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/press\/hui-christian-pastor-sentenced-to-nine-months-in-prison-6453\/","title":{"rendered":"Hui Christian pastor sentenced to nine months in prison"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1b2414ea67e99b9a287fc19d1dc7cb49.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><b>Hui Christian Pastor Ma Yan was sentenced to nine months in prison for \u2018organising illegal gatherings\u2019 by the Yinchuan Railway Transportation Court in China\u2019s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region on 24 March.<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ma was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/2025\/02\/11\/%e6%8c%89\/6430\/article.htm\/\">charged and tried<\/a> on 10 February 2025 for organising a gathering of no more than ten Christians in Jinfeng District, Yinchuan, Ningxia, which was raided by police officers on 9 August 2024. CSW sources suggested that Ma pleaded guilty during the trial because the charge of \u2018organising illegal gatherings\u2019 carries a lighter sentence compared to other charges and does not attract moral stigmatisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The US-based rights organisation China Aid <a href=\"https:\/\/chinaaid.org\/news\/ningxia-yinchuan-house-church-preacher-ma-yan-convicted-of-organizing-illegal-gathering-and-sentenced-to-9-months\/\">\u62a5\u544a<\/a> that Ma\u2019s sentence will be offset by 32 days of previous administrative detentions, and that since he has been criminally detained since 20 August 2024, he will be released on 17 April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">CSW\u2019s Founder President Mervyn Thomas said: <b><i>\u2018It is completely unacceptable that Pastor Ma Yan has been sentenced to nine months in prison for organising a small gathering of Christians, as is his fundamental right under Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. While we note that he will be released soon, we maintain that he should not have spent a day in detention in the first place, and insist that the authorities must acquit him immediately.\u2019<\/i><\/b><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hui Christian Pastor Ma Yan was sentenced to nine months in prison for organising illegal gatherings by the Yinchuan Railway Transportation Court in Chinas Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region on 24 March.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":44069,"template":"","categories":[],"regions":[131,128],"class_list":["post-29933","press","type-press","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","regions-china","regions-east-asia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press\/29933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/press"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press\/29933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40518,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press\/29933\/revisions\/40518"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29933"},{"taxonomy":"regions","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions?post=29933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}