(Minghui.org) An 80-year-old environmental engineer in Jinzhou City, Liaoning Province, has had her pension suspended since 2016 because she refuses to renounce her faith in Falun Gong.
Ms. Wu Xiulan began working in 1968. She held various positions in the Jinzhou City government, the Construction Bureau, and the Environmental Protection Institute until she retired in 2002.
In 1974, Ms. Wu developed rheumatoid arthritis. While receiving treatments, she contracted the Hepatitis B virus. A few years later, she was found to have uterine fibroids and was operated on. Due to contamination in blood transfusion, she also contracted Hepatitis C. Her face was dull, and she constantly felt tired. She visited almost all the big hospitals in nearby cities to seek treatment, but to no avail.
Ms. Wu attended a Falun Gong lecture series in early 1996. After practicing it for a while, she completely recovered and returned to work after taking one year's sick leave.
After the Chinese communist regime ordered the persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999, Ms. Wu was repeatedly targeted for upholding her faith. She was given a one-year labor camp term and two prison terms totaling five years. After her pension was suspended in 2016, she contacted various agencies, demanding her pension reinstatement, but to no avail. On March 3, 2025, she filed an administrative lawsuit with the Jinzhou Railway Court, demanding that the Jinzhou Human Resources and Social Security Bureau and the Finance Bureau return the pension they had withheld from her in the past nine years and resume her retirement benefits.
Ms. Wu wrote in her complaint, “I’m 80 years old. I don’t have any children. According to the Chinese tradition and the ‘Social Rights Protection Law,’ I should be respected and protected by society. At least my basic livelihood should be protected. But since April 2016, I haven’t received a penny of my pension. I don’t have any other income and could only rely on contributions from good-hearted people. I had never expected to be in such a dire financial situation after having worked for 34 years. How sad that I am struggling to get by in my senior years and running around to seek my hard-earned pension!”
Below are excerpts from Ms. Wu’s complaint.
Prison Sentences and Torture
I was arrested on May 13, 2015, while putting up self-adhesive posters about Falun Gong. The Linghe District Court held a hearing of my case on September 8, 2015, and later sentenced me to two years. In April 2016, the Jinzhou City Social Security Bureau suspended my pension. After I was released in May 2017, I contacted them and demanded they reinstate the payments, but to no avail.
I was arrested again on July 5, 2019, and sentenced to another three years, also by the Linghe District Court. I was transferred from the Jinzhou City Detention Center to the Liaoning Province Women’s Prison at the end of December 2019. I was 74 years old at the time and should have been assigned to the division for the elderly and infirm. The guards, however, put me in the fifth division and I was still forced to work for long hours every day without pay. My workstation was near the entrance of the building, with lower temperatures and a strong draft. It always took hours for my legs to warm up when I returned to my cell at night.
Also, because I refused to renounce Falun Gong, the guards didn’t give me any bedding and forced me to sleep on a bare board. Several inmates took turns watching me and preventing me from falling asleep.
As a result of the persecution, I developed high blood pressure and felt very dizzy. The guards gave me some pills, but I didn’t dare to take them, fearing they might be toxic. Seeing that I was really tired, the inmate head Li Xiaodan allowed me to take a nap during the day. After the work session was over, several inmates took me to a small room, beating me and verbally abusing me, and trying to force me to renounce Falun Gong. One of them also hit me in the right liver area.
After a few days, I became exhausted and was in a serious condition. Only then did the guards order the inmates to stop beating me. Yet they still forced me to work until I was released.
Illegal to Suspend My Pension
When I was still in prison, I read the book “Prison Exit Education” published by the Central Prison Supervision Bureau. On page 152, it wrote, “For those who retired before being sentenced and have started to receive pension payments, upon release from prison, they will receive the same pension payment as before being sentenced and will be qualified for future cost-of-living adjustment.”
Before I was released, two guards said I should first make sure to get my pension payments reinstated. One of them recommended I contact the justice bureau to inform them of my prison release. But when I went to the justice bureau later on, they said they were only in charge of judicial affairs, not pension payments. I told them that guard Zhang said twice to me to contact the justice bureau and I wasn’t sure who was telling me the truth. They remained silent.
I also went to my residential committee, which told me that I should contact the social security bureau to get my pensions, and they even said I could sue the social security bureau if they refused to pay me. But when I went there, I was only given run-arounds between different agencies.
When I talked to the social security bureau, they cited the No. 69 notice, “Notice on Issues Related to the Compulsory Measures Taken by Institutional Workers and the Handling of Administrative Criminal Penalties,” from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security in 2012.
This notice was an internal publication and not an enacted law. As China’s labor law and social security law protect retirees from forfeiture of their hard-earned pension benefits, the notice cannot be used to strip me of my retirement benefits.
In addition, document No. [2010]5 issued by the General Office of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee on May 21, 2021, stated in Article 1: “Released prisoners shall not be discriminated against in employment, education, social security, etc., and shall enjoy equal social treatment.” The Article 12 also said, “Released prisoners who meet the conditions for applying for unemployment insurance benefits shall enjoy unemployment insurance benefits in accordance with regulations; those who have participated in the basic pension insurance for employees or the new rural social pension insurance shall continue to participate in the insurance and pay premiums or receive basic pensions in accordance with regulations.”
In “Labor and Social Security Office Letter [2001] No. 44,” a reply from the General Office of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security regarding pension benefits for retired personnel after they were sentenced to prison, it said: “After serving a prison sentence or undergoing reeducation through labor, basic pensions can continue to be paid according to the standards before serving a sentence or undergoing reeducation through labor, and they can participate in future adjustments to basic pensions.”
And finally, the Central Committee for Comprehensive Management of Public Security, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, the State Administration of Taxation, and the State Administration for Industry and Commerce issued a joint-opinion in 2004, saying that “For prisoners released from prison who have received basic pensions before being sentenced to prison or reeducation through labor, they may continue to receive basic pensions based on the rates before serving their sentences or reeducation through labor, and participate in future pension adjustments.”
As can be seen above, it is completely illegal for the Social Security Bureau to withhold my pension.
Living a Destitute Life
After I finished serving my first prison sentence in May 2017, I went to the Social Security Bureau to seek my pension reinstatement. They ordered me to pay back the fund I had received between in May 2015 and May 2016 (the time between my arrest and before they started to suspend my pension). I told them I couldn’t afford to pay back the money. They referred to the No. 69 notice again and said it was up to my employer to decide whether I should receive the minimal living cost.
I argued the notice should not be used as a legal basis to suspend my pension, as it went against the Social Security law. Even by Article 9 in section 2 of the notice, my pension should have long been reinstated, as it stated, “If a staff member of a public institution or a worker of a government agency is subject to compulsory measures and administrative or criminal penalties after retirement, if he or she has been enrolling in the pension payments, their pensions should be handled in accordance with the relevant provisions of the state.”
But the social security staffer who received me covered a hard copy of the notice to prevent me from reading it.
After I was released from my second prison term in July 2022, it took me nearly 17 months to start receiving the heating subsidy, and my pension was still suspended.
The prison sentences and financial persecution caused tremendous difficulty for me. I feel mentally and physically exhausted. I was under unprecedented pressure, unable to work and living on my own at my current age. Before I finally received the heating subsidy in December 2023, I was often shivering in the cold of winter, with wind blowing through my old window. I tried to seal the window with some cotton cloth, but it didn’t work very well. Later on, a kind-hearted person offered to pay for new windows for me. I really appreciated his help, but I was unable to repay him for anything.
In addition to the window, the heater was also broken, and the sink and balcony were leaking, but I couldn’t afford to repair any of it.
For all these years, I relied on the food donated by my family members and friends to get by: some gave me bags of rice, while others offered flour or some vegetables. Sometimes I dug edible wild vegetables in the field.
When the Chinese Communist Party glorifies itself on TV, who would expect that under its rule, an 80-year-old former engineer who worked for the government agency for 34 years has to survive by eating wild vegetables. I was well-respected while I was working, but in my senior years, I was forced to live such a destitute life because of the persecution for my faith. I didn’t do anything wrong, but I merely try to be a good person by following Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. This is the price to be a good person under the communist reign.
I contacted the social security bureau many times, explaining to them I was wrongfully sentenced and that the pension is my lawfully earned assets, gained through my decades of hard work. It’s not bestowed by the government; the social security bureau was only helping me manage it, and it has no right to withhold or suspend it from me. But no matter what I said, they all ignored me and continued to withhold the payments, leaving me in a dire situation.
Related Reports:
74-Year-Old Woman Arrested for Her Faith
Jinzhou City, Liaoning Province: Falun Gong Practitioners’ Pension Unlawfully Suspended
Copyright © 1999-2025 Minghui.org. All rights reserved.
