(Minghui.org) A piano teacher from Shuangliu County, Sichuan Province was fired shortly after the persecution of Falun Gong began in 1999. Her employer, Huayang Vocational Middle School, also confiscated her school-subsidized house for which she had paid her share in full.
In the years that followed, Ms. Xie Xia, a single mother, moved from one place to another to find odd jobs to support herself and her child. As if that was not enough, the local 610 Office often ordered landlords not to rent to her, making her life even harder.
Ms. Xie however was not deterred by the ordeal. She kept telling people how wrong the Chinese Communist Party is in persecuting Falun Gong, a spiritual practice that has transformed so many lives. Her simple act landed her in detention numerous times.
Ms. Xie was given one year of forced labor in 2000. From 2006 to 2009, she was incarcerated at a prison in Henan Province after being illegally arrested for distributing Falun Gong literature there. Most recently, she was arrested in May 2013 while on her way to visit her sick mother.
Ms. Xie saw her pension suspended last July when the Shuangliu County Social Security Bureau received a secret document from the Dongsheng Town Neighborhood Committee ordering the bureau to transfer her pension to a government-controlled account. The Committee people later admitted that the 610 Office issued the order.
After Ms. Xie filed a lawsuit against the Shuangliu County Social Security Bureau, the Longquanyi Court, which is in charge of retirement benefits disputes, agreed that the Bureau had indeed broken the law and ordered an arbitration between the parties. The Bureau soon returned all of Ms. Xie's back benefits and agreed to deposit her future pension money directly into her own bank account.
Encouraged by the legal outcome of her pension lawsuit, Ms. Xie next filed a lawsuit against her former employer with the Huayang Court, which is tasked with handling property disputes suits. The court however refused to hear the case, and Ms. Xie has now taken her lawsuit to the Chengdu City Intermediate Court.
Since the statue of limitations is two years for most civil cases in China, it is not clear if the higher court will accept Ms. Xie's case, and if yes, what kind of legal outcome she may expect.
Partial list of perpetrators:
Zhu Qunying, head of Dongsheng Town Neighborhood Committee: +86-13981738286Chen Weiguo, deputy director, Shuanliu County Court: +86-028-85626229Wang Xiuqin, staff member at Xinjin Brainwashing Center: +86-13608177484More contact information for perpetrators is available in the original Chinese version