(Minghui.org) A Keshan County, Heilongjiang Province, resident, survived brutal torture and involuntary drug administration while serving a 4.5-year term for her faith in Falun Gong, only to face further financial persecution with her pension suspended.
Ms. Li Yingju, 79, was arrested on March 8, 2018, for distributing information about Falun Gong. She was sentenced to four and a half years in the Nongken Court on July 12, 2018. Her 84-year-old husband died three months after she was sentenced.
While serving time at the Heilongjiang Province Women’s Prison, Ms. Li was drugged for a few months, which led to significant decline of her vision – she couldn’t see a person standing six feet away and she felt as if there was a piece of plastic hanging in front of her eyes.
After Ms. Li was released from prison in September 2022, she found her pension had been suspended. She went to the local social security bureau to seek the reinstatement of her pension. She was told that she must return over 70,000 yuan first, including over 40,000 yuan of pension payments issued during her 4.5-year prison sentence and about 20,000 yuan of annual cost-of-living adjustments since 2016, when she completed a prior five-year term for practicing Falun Gong. Ms. Li said she couldn’t afford to pay the money.
In April 2023, Ms. Li received a call from the social security bureau, who ordered her to pay back the 70,000 yuan. She reiterated that she had no money and she asked whether they could reinstate her retirement benefits first and then deduct a portion from it every month to pay back the “debt.” She didn’t receive any response.
The social security bureau called Ms. Li’s younger brother in June 2023 and said she had until June 15 that year to pay back the full amount, or they would file a lawsuit against her. Her brother asked if they would reinstate her pension if she complied with the demand. The caller said, “Yes, we definitely will.”
In order to have monthly income again, Ms. Li borrowed 78,736.72 yuan from her family and cleared her “debt” in July 2023. The social security bureau didn’t give her a receipt and said they wouldn’t be able to make a payment to her that month, but promised to pay her in August.
Ms. Li still hadn’t received anything by September 2023. She went back to the social security bureau to inquire about the status of her pension, only to be told that her years of service had been wiped out and they had returned her pension account to her workplace, the Keshan Farm. They further ordered her to return the payments she received between her prior prison release in 2016 and her latest arrest in 2018. She refused to pay.
Ms. Li contacted Keshan Farm, which then worked with the social security bureau and the local petition office to apply for a low-income subsidy for her. She began to receive monthly payment of 1,100 yuan since January 2024.
Related Reports:
Heilongjiang Women’s Prison Orders Inmates to Drug Falun Gong Practitioner
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