Inner Mongolia: Woman’s Pension Suspended for Her Faith

(Minghui.org) While Ms. Wang Xiaoyan was caring for her critically ill mother in the hospital in May 2021, her local Social Security Bureau in Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia secretly suspended her pension. Three months later, her 87-year-old mother passed away.

Upon returning home after finishing her mother’s funeral, Ms. Wang, who lives on her own, struggled to make a living, let alone find money to buy coal to stay warm during the cold winter or prepare for the upcoming Chinese New Year on February 12.

Ms. Wang’s ordeal is simply because she is being targeted for refusing to renounce her faith in Falun Gong, an ancient spiritual and meditation discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

Ms. Wang, a former postal worker, took up Falun Gong in 1996. She credits the practice for curing her many ailments that once kept her from working for two years. Since the onset of the persecution, she has served two labor camp terms and was constantly harassed and had her home ransacked.

Ms. Wang’s latest arrest was on September 13, 2009, after being reported for distributing informational materials about Falun Gong with another practitioner Ms. Li Yufen. The police took their keys and ransacked both of their homes without a warrant. Their Falun Gong books, photo of Falun Gong’s founder, computers, and Falun Gong related materials were confiscated. The 30,000 yuan cash Ms. Li kept at home was also taken away, without a receipt.

When the police finally presented the lists of confiscated items during the practitioners’ hearing, they noticed that many items were fabricated and the lists also had signatures of alleged witnesses who weren’t present during the raids. Both women were later sentenced to four years to the Hohhot City Women’s Prison.

After Ms. Wang was released in February 2013, she borrowed money to finish making the minimum contribution to qualify for pension benefits upon retirement. She retired on December 1 that year and started to receive her pension.

After the the Social Security Bureau suspended her pension around May 2021, she went to the Bureau to inquire about it. A staff member produced a letter issued by the General Office of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security in 2001, which stated that retirees shouldn’t receive any pension while serving time. While the letter was issued in 2001, the staff member couldn’t explain why they didn’t suspend Ms. Wang’s pension during her imprisonment, but waited to take action until eight years after her prison release.

Ms. Wang consulted several lawyers and was told that no Chinese labor law has such stipulation and the letter itself doesn’t give legal binding power for the Social Security Bureau to suspend her pension.

Ms. Wang wrote a letter to the Social Security Bureau on October 25, 2021 and demanded they reinstate her pension or state the legal basis for them to suspend her pension. She also sent copies of the letter to the local government and Human Resources Bureau in Bahrain Left Banner. No agency ever replied to her.

Ms. Wang followed up with the Human Resources Bureau on January 4, 2022 and demanded they make public the legal basis for her pension suspension. The director Liu rejected her and said he didn’t know anything about how to make the information public. The head of the Social Security Bureau also claimed that they had consulted with the Appeals Office, who affirmed that what they did was following the law.

Ms. Wang wrote another letter to the heads of both Social Security Bureau and Human Resources Bureau, urging them to reinstate her pension, but to no avail.