(Minghui.org) For upholding their faith in Falun Gong, a married couple in Lanzhou City, Gansu Province, weren’t only subjected to prison sentences and torture, but also had their pensions suspended, leaving them in dire financial straits.
Mr. Li Fubin, 73, is a retired employee of Donggang Food Factory. His wife, Ms. Zheng Shu, 67, worked for the Lanzhou Land Resources Administration Bureau before she retired.
Mr. Li was arrested on February 10, 2002 and sentenced to eight years by the Chengguan District Court in November 2003. While in custody, he was constantly beaten, verbally abused, deprived of sleep, forced to sit on a small stool or stand for long hours without moving, starved, held in solitary confinement and denied family visits. He developed several medical conditions, especially high blood pressure. Despite his poor health, the prison still forced him to work outdoors without pay and there were no days off during the heat of the summer or in freezing winter.
In addition to the incarceration and physical torture, Mr. Li also had his pension, including the principal and the annual cost-of-living adjustments, suspended during his entire prison term. After he was released, the social security bureau only gave him 400 yuan in stipends each month, making it extremely difficult for him to make ends meet.
Mr. Li and his wife were arrested again on September 3, 2016. He was sentenced to six years and Ms. Zheng to three years by the Chengguan Court on February 2, 2018.
Ms. Zheng was transferred to the Gansu Province Women’s Prison on June 11, 2018. The guards ordered her to write a thought report every day and recite the prison rules. As she often failed to memorize the rules, the inmates beat and verbally abused her. The inmates even ordered her to recite the prison rules during meal times. The food she was given was never enough. She developed high blood pressure as a result of the abuse. She was released on September 3, 2019.
Mr. Li was admitted to the ninth ward of the Lanzhou Prison on June 12, 2018. He developed high blood pressure, high blood sugar and vision decline, after being subjected to savage beatings and other forms of abuse, and being forced to sit on a small stool without moving for more than ten hours every day. He was released on September 3, 2022.
During Mr. Li’s second prison sentence (September 2016 – September 2022), the social security bureau stopped the 400 yuan of monthly stipends. They resumed the benefits after he was released, but only gave him about 1,400 yuan each month when he was entitled to a much higher amount given his years of service. When he visited them to request the full benefit amount and the payback of the pension funds suspended during his two prison terms, they instead demanded that he return the “extra” pension he had received in the past, when he was never overpaid in the first place. In order to have a stable monthly income, however, Mr. Li was forced to agree to have 600 yuan deducted from his monthly payment to pay back the non-existent “pension debt” and he lives on the remaining 400 yuan.
In addition to the financial persecution of Mr. Li, Ms. Zheng was forced to pay back the 136,800 yuan pension (3,800 yuan per month) that she received during her three-year prison term between 2016 and 2019, which further aggravated their financial predicament.
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