(Minghui.org) A 63-year-old woman in Urumqi City, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is struggling to make a living because she has no retirement benefits.

Ms. Li Xianghong has a master’s degree and used to work as a lecturer at the Xinjiang Engineering Institute (now part of Xinjiang University). Her school terminated her in April 2001 when she was sentenced to three years for practicing Falun Gong.

Ms. Li took up Falun Gong in 1997 and soon recovered from Meniere’s syndrome and other diseases. After the communist regime launched a nationwide campaign against Falun Gong in July 1999, she held firm to her faith and was repeatedly targeted. She was held in a psychiatric hospital from October to December 1999, and was given injections that damaged her central nervous system. She also faced sexual harassment by the male patients housed in the same ward.

Ms. Li was arrested again in August 2000, and sentenced to three years in April 2001. Given her physical condition, she was allowed to serve time outside of prison.

Ms. Li’s school fired her immediately after her wrongful conviction. They also wiped out her 16 years of service and pension contributions from her retirement account, which left her with no pension benefits. By law, employers have no right to empty their employees’ retirement accounts.

Ms. Li’s husband filed for divorce in late 2001 and was given sole custody of their child. Almost all of their marital assets went to him as well. Ms. Li was given only 4,000 yuan, which was later seized by police.

Ms. Li was arrested again in March 2002 and sentenced to 11 years at an unknown time. She was admitted to the Xinjiang Women’s Prison and subjected to various forms of abuse, including beatings, sleep deprivation, and brainwashing. From March 2007 to January 2008, she was held in a solitary confinement that was about 2.5-meter (8.2 feet) long and 1.6-meter (5.2 feet) wide. There were no windows. She was handcuffed and shackled with the cuffs and shackles linked to a ring anchored to the floor (see image below). The guards played videos smearing Falun Gong around the clock. She went on a hunger strike in protest and was force-fed.

Torture illustration: handcuffed and shackled

Ms. Li later had multiple episodes of heart problems and was released on parole some time after 2011 (exact time unknown). In 2021, she was hospitalized for heart surgery and cancer chemotherapy. As she had no medical insurance, her family struggled to cover her medical expenses (totaling hundreds of thousands of yuan).

Ms. Li reached retirement age [55 for white-collar women in China] around 2018, with no pension benefits. Living alone, she has struggled to get by all these years.

Related Reports:

Lecturer Li Xianghong Sentenced to Eleven Years in Prison

Former Xinjiang University Instructors Held in Prison for Seven Years