Financial Persecution of Falun Gong Practitioners by Jinzhou Social Security Service Center in Liaoning Province

(Minghui.org) Since the Chinese Communist Party started persecuting Falun Gong in 1999, the Jinzhou Human Resources and Social Security Service Center (Jinzhou Social Security Service Center for short) in Liaoning Province has been actively carrying out the financial persecution part of the policy “Ruin their reputations, cut off their financial resources, and destroy them physically.” Wang Weidong, He Fang, Dong Ye, Zhao Yang and others were the chief perpetrators in withholding payments of local practitioners’ pensions and putting them in an extremely difficult situation to make ends meet.

Wang Weidong and His Involvement in the Persecution of Falun Gong Practitioners

Wang Weidong, born in September 1968, started to serve as head of the Bureau of Social Security Service of Jinzhou City in February 2017 and became Director of Jinzhou Social Security Service Center in August 2018.

During his tenure, pension benefits of more than 30 Falun Gong practitioners in the Jinzhou region, including Xu Xiuyun, Zhou Yuzhen, Wu Xiulan, Wu Baogui, and Bai Mingfang, were suspended because they had been unlawfully sentenced to prison for upholding their faith.

The affected practitioners included more than 20 who retired from enterprises and around 10 who retired from public institutions. In addition to the 30 plus practitioners, some other practitioners had pensions suspended because they did not apply for second-generation ID cards.

Some practitioners saw their pension payments stopped immediately after they were sentenced, while others had their pensions suspended or reduced after they were released.

As for Falun Gong practitioners who had retired from public institutions and unlawfully sentenced to prison, Wang and his staff reduced their years of service to zero and stopped paying them any pension and medical insurance benefits, with no concern for how they would make a living with no source of income.

Wang also instructed his staff to force Falun Gong practitioners to pay back the pension already paid to them during wrongful terms; he even went to a number of public institutions to check the practitioners’ files and hosted a meeting with relevant personnel, asking why these practitioners were still not fired. All these caused extreme financial hardships and despair to Falun Gong practitioners and their families.

Overseas Falun Gong practitioners called Wang many times and wrote him letters to clarify the truth about Falun Gong and urged him to stop doing evil and quit the CCP, but he refused to listen and continues with his unlawful conduct.

He Fang and Her Involvement in the Persecution of Falun Gong Practitioners

He Fang is head of the Section for Enterprise Pensions, Jinzhou Social Security Service Center. She proactively participated in the financial persecution of Falun Gong practitioners who worked in enterprises by withholding their pension payments.

In September 2020, a Falun Gong practitioner went to ask why her pension had been withheld and requested an official notification of the suspension. He Fang refused to issue any notification due to “potential legal liability.” Clearly, she knew very well that what they were doing was illegal.

Some social security staffers also showed Falun Gong practitioners a “Reminder of Investigation into the Illegal Receipt of Basic Pension by Prisoners” issued by the Fifth Department of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate. However, the Fifth Department is only responsible for the law enforcement in prisons and labor camps and has no jurisdiction over pension issues, and the “Reminder” is in itself an act of overstepping authority. Furthermore, the “Reminder” has no official seal to indicate its authenticity or legitimacy.

Under instructions from Wang and He, staff members Wang Man and Gao Chao forced Falun Gong practitioners to repay pensions they “owed” to the social security service center.

One Falun Gong practitioner was unlawfully sentenced to prison in 2002. After her pension was withheld for over a year, she went to the Section for Enterprise Pensions to settle her pension issues and asked Gao Chao to show her the spreadsheet of her pension record, as well as relevant official documents to justify the suspension of her pension. Gao refused to do so, and demanded that she pay back what had been paid to her earlier. When the practitioner asked for the interest on her pension, another staffer Zhao Yu said, “No interest. If you don’t pay up, we will send you to the judiciary department.”

For some practitioners, even after the Jinzhou Social Security Service Center withheld the pension they received earlier during their wrongful term, the center still wouldn’t reinstate their pensions. When such practitioners repeatedly demanded their pension payments, He Fang and others would ask for copies of their conviction and release certificates as a prerequisite for pension reinstatement. However, in most cases, none of these documents were allowed to be taken out of prison upon the practitioners’ release, and these social security officers are fully aware of this fact.

Recently, when some retired Falun Gong practitioners went to talk to He Fang about their pension issues, she directed them to Gao and Zhao. The two officers would order the practitioners to copy a pre-prepared “agreement,” which required them to admit that they had illegally claimed their pensions and were willingly repaying all their “illegally obtained” pensions before applying for the reinstatement. They were told that their pensions would only be reinstated after they signed the “agreement.”

Zhao once said to a practitioner that their pensions would be withheld for as long as it takes, unless they did as they were told.

Dong Ye and Her Involvement in the Persecution of Falun Gong Practitioners

Dong Ye, in her 30s, is head of the Section for Public Institution Pensions, Jinzhou Social Security Service Center. She has proactively participated in the financial persecution of Falun Gong practitioners and is always very rude when speaking with them.

Dong started demanding copies of court verdicts and release certificates from Falun Gong practitioners in November 2019. She then forced the public institutions to withhold pensions of Falun Gong practitioners who had been unlawfully sentenced to prison. In case of any delays in executing her demand, she would keep calling the relevant institutions and speak in a coercive and intimidating manner until they stopped paying pensions to their practitioner employees.

When affected practitioners went to reason with the service center, Dong would yell at them: “You were convicted, so don’t expect to get any pension from here!” “You must pay back all pensions paid to you earlier!” “We are acting on orders from the Public Security Bureau. If you don’t pay back your pensions, we will take you to court!”

Around June 9, 2021, Dong called staff members in charge of retirement affairs in each public institution in Jinzhou, demanding them to go after practitioners who had been sentenced to prison and order them to return the pension they had received during their terms. The demanded sums ranged from 100,000 to 400,000 yuan. Dong claimed that all these moneys were owed to Jinzhou Social Security Bureau and must be paid back.

Wu Xiulan, a Falun Gong practitioner who is retired from a public institution, went to reason with Jinzhou Social Security Service Center many times about her withheld pension, but without any success. Her former colleagues agree that it’s extremely unfair not to pay her any pension, especially when she is already in her 70s and with no other source of income.

Some practitioners tried to file a complaint against the unlawful practices of Jinzhou Social Security Service Center, but the court refused to accept their cases unless they could provide an official “notification” issued by the center to withhold their pension. However, Dong refused to provide any such document.

The fact is that when Jinzhou Social Security Service Center decided to withhold Falun Gong practitioners’ pensions, the document they sent out to various institutions had no legal basis and was not even in any format of an official document, and the decision was unlawful.

Zhao Yang and His Involvement in the Persecution of Falun Gong Practitioners

Zhao Yang, in his 50s, is head of the Section for Aged Care in Public Institutions, Jinzhou Social Security Service Center.

Like the few officers mentioned above, Zhao is also actively involved in the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. Once, he organized a meeting with staff from relevant public institutions and questioned them on why they had not fired Falun Gong practitioners from their employment, and told them to work out a plan with their leadership to deal with these practitioners.

He also personally went to several institutions to check Falun Gong practitioners’ files, in an attempt to find evidence to persecute them. He suggested that those institutions fire the practitioners to justify the deprivation of their pensions.

In fact, Jinzhou Social Security Service Center does not have any administrative authority on issues concerning the employment of public servants, and there is no law that stipulates that a public servant must be fired if he/she has been sentenced to jail, especially when the sentence itself was illegal in the first place.

In essence, pension benefits are not government handouts to individuals, but are private assets that are kept in the social security system, which releases pension payments on a regular basis. The social security system has no right to withhold pension benefits from those entitled to them.

Wang and others have abused their authority by enforcing suspension of pensions of Falun Gong practitioners and acted against the Social Insurance Law, the Employment Law, the Law on Protection of Rights and Interests of the Elderly, and are thus suspected of committing the offenses of dereliction of duty and abuse of authority.

Particulars of Officers from Jinzhou Social Security Service Center Involved in the Persecution of Falun Practitioners

Center of Human Resources and Social Security Service of Jinzhou (Jinzhou Social Security Service Center)Office Phone: [phone]Fax: [phone]Wang Weidong (王伟东), director: [phone]Liu (刘某): deputy director: [phone]

Zhao Yang (赵洋), head of Section for Aged Care in Public Institutions: [phone], [phone]He Fang (何芳), head of Section for Enterprise Pensions: [phone]Officers: Gao Chao (高超), Zhao Yu (赵宇)Dong Ye (董烨), head of Section for Public Institution Pensions: [phone]