(Minghui.org) A resident of Guanghan City, Sichuan Province, was recently notified that she was not allowed to receive pension or other benefits because she refused to renounce her faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
Ms. Zhao Xianchang, 54, previously served two forced labor camps totaling five years (2000-2002 and 2004-2007) for practicing Falun Gong. Her employer, the Guangshan Third Middle School, terminated her shortly after her arrest in June 2004. They also set to zero her years of service in her future retirement benefit calculation formula, essentially rendering her with no pension.
After Ms. Zhao completed her second forced labor term in 2007, she began her uphill battle to get her job back and reinstate her years of service in her pension calculation. The board of education not only denied her repeated requests, but also revoked her teacher’s license. They even reported her to the police when she asked for her job back again in 2022. The police installed a surveillance camera and arranged for people in cars or on foot to monitor her, which continues to this day.
Ms. Zhao wrote to the Guanghan City Appeals Office on January 16, 2024 and the Sichuan Province Governor on May 9, 2024, requesting low-income subsidy and retirement benefits [as she was approaching the retirement age of 55 for female teachers in China]. Her letters were forwarded to her local Xiangyang Town Government, which replied to her in a text on July 3, 2024.
The government text reply read, “We have received your letter from the governor’s office and are now responding to your concerns. After you were released from the labor camp, the board of education had multiple talks with you to try to help you break your addiction to practicing Falun Gong. You refused to be helped and the board of education proceeded to revoke your teacher’s license. Before the restructure of the local street committee, you applied for low-income subsidy with the then director Yin Daxiang. Director Yin explained that you must write a statement to renounce Falun Gong. You refused to comply and were thus denied subsidy. Because you were fired and had your years of services wiped out after you were given forced labor, we could not process your retirement application. Since you have not lost your ability to work, we cannot grant you disability benefits either.”
No law in China criminalizes Falun Gong. Ms. Zhao should never have been given forced labor in the first place, much less have her job terminated and years of service in pension calculation wiped out. She now struggles to get by.
Under Close Surveillance for Trying to Get Old Teaching Job Back
When Ms. Zhao approached the Guanghan City Board of Education again in 2022 to request her job back, they reported her to the local Xiangyang Town Police Station and turned over her letter to the chair of the board of education. She went to a post office in a nearby town to mail a letter to relevant government agencies, but that post office gave her letter to the Xiangyang Town Police Station.
The Xiangyang Town Police Station summoned her on June 20, 2022, and accused her of violating the public security administration punishment law. She refused to sign the interrogation records, and the police noted so on the records. While they released her that day, they dispatched people to follow her every day as she juggled various temporary jobs to make a living. When they saw that she passed a certain intersection every day, the police installed a surveillance camera at the intersection.
The monitors assigned to shadow Ms. Zhao were everywhere. Some sat at a tea shop facing her home. As soon as she stepped out the door, they reported her to the police. When she got to her vendor booth (she ran a small business), the community workers there came out to inspect what was in her cart and see whom she talked to.
One day she was working her temporary job at a supermarket when a monitor followed her and insinuated to her coworkers that she was a terrorist because of her faith in Falun Gong. She felt tremendous pressure and soon quit the supermarket job.
Ms. Zhao wheeled her mother, in her 80s, to a local fair in March 2024 and ran into an acquaintance. They hadn’t seen each other for a long time so they chatted for a bit longer. The monitor shadowing her that day eavesdropped on their conversation.
Ms. Zhao wrote a letter to the Xiangyang Town Police Station and the township officials, urging them to stop monitoring her like a criminal because she’d broken no law by practicing Falun Gong or trying to get her job back.
The authorities responded by raiding her home on March 3, 2024. Ms. Zhao was getting ready to tutor to a few students in her home at 3 p.m. that day, when the chief of the Xiangyang Town Police Station broke in with his deputy chief and another officer. The chief ripped off the couplets on the door as he entered. He confiscated a computer and Falun Gong books from Ms. Zhao’s bedroom and a copy of Zhuan Falun (the main text of Falun Gong), and a music player from her mother’s bedroom.
The chief threatened to detain Ms. Zhao for two years and warned her that someone from the Political and Legal Affairs Committee (an extrajudicial agency tasked with overseeing the persecution of Falun Gong) would come the next day. He said before they left, “The Chinese Communist Party is so good yet you are going against it.”
The deputy chief came with two officers and an agent from the Political and Legal Affairs Committee at 11 a.m. the next day. The agent threatened to detain her because she had written a letter to government agencies requesting her job back.
Ms. Zhao had to shut down her tutoring service because no parents dared to send their children to her home for after-school tutoring.
Related Reports:
Status of Practitioners Imprisoned in Guanghan City, Sichuan Province
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