(Minghui.org) After I was released from prison, having served time for practicing Falun Dafa, my pension was suspended. Although the Social Security Bureau claimed that my prison term disqualifies me from receiving the pension, there is no such stipulation in the Chinese labor law. Being wrongfully sentenced for practicing my faith is already a very severe persecution; having my pension suspended because of this is even more evil. From reading sharing articles on Minghui.org, I realized that my case isn’t an isolated one, and many other practitioners also face the same situation and seek justice for themselves by taking legal action. Inspired by these articles, I thought about doing the same.
Without a professional background, it’s not easy to study all the relevant information. But I remember Master’s teaching, “When it’s difficult to endure, you can endure it. When it’s impossible to do, you can do it.” (Lecture Nine, Zhuan Falun) Since I’ve made the decision to do it, I will continue.
When things didn’t go right in the ensuing legal cases, I felt frustrated for not having enough compassion. I realized that my pursuit of winning the case was more important than taking this as an opportunity to save people. In order to do better, I constantly reminded myself why I am doing this.
Once, when I went to the Social Security Bureau to demand that they reinstate my pension, they questioned me as to why I was sentenced. I took the opportunity to tell them more about the persecution, which had no legal basis from the start. They were surprised to hear that Falun Dafa was not on the “cult list” identified by the police. I regretted that we didn’t clarify the facts well enough in the past. Now, over two decades since the onset of the persecution, there are still people in the government system who aren’t aware of the basic facts.
In my future interactions with the government officials, I remained persistent and kind. While some officials couldn’t do much to help me, their attitude improved significantly.
In fact, when we do take legal action, it has the power to deter the evil. Below are some experiences from participating in other practitioners’ cases.
Once, a practitioner’s Dafa books were taken away by the police. When I accompanied him to the police station to demand that the police return the books, I said to the police chief, “He didn’t violate any law in having the books. You should return them!” “Why do you say it didn’t violate the law?” he asked. “Then show me your legal basis!” Unable to answer my question, the police chief left the room.
In another case, we saw the police’s opinion in determining Falun Dafa materials as “cult propaganda” in the practitioner’s indictment. This was an obvious conflict of interest for the police, as a law-enforcement agency, to issue such an opinion, as this kind of opinion should be provided by an independent, third-party agency. On the other hand, no written law has ever criminalized Falun Dafa in China. We applied to the municipal police department for them to publish the information on how they reached the decision to issue the opinion. We didn’t receive any update from them, but we also didn’t see the opinion in the practitioner’s case profile anymore after it was moved to the court.
Unfortunately, in the end the practitioner was still sentenced. When he appealed the verdict, the intermediate court judge told him that he understood everything the practitioner had said in his defense argument, but they still had to follow the order from the Political and Legal Affairs Committee in upholding his original verdict. I was sad to see the judicial officials acting as a rubber-stamp for the communist regime. It’s a disservice to themselves and I worried about their future. It also reminds me of the importance and difficulty of clarifying the facts to people in the judicial system. But if their conscience can be awakened through our actions to seek justice, even if we lose the case in the end, our efforts have not been in vain.
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