(Minghui.org) A retired college professor from Suihua City, Heilongjiang Province has been denied pension benefits since February 2019, when she started serving a one-year prison sentence for her faith in Falun Gong. Ms. Gao Jinshu and her husband struggled to get by on his meager pension income during the past four-plus years.
Things got even tougher after Ms. Gao was hit by a car in May 2022, and her husband had to be hospitalized for an illness six months later. The authorities, however, have refused to reinstate her retirement benefits.
The Minghui.org website has reported many cases of Falun Gong practitioners being either denied pension benefits outright during their prison terms or ordered to return benefits that had been issued while they were serving time. Ms. Gao’s case is the most severe in that her local social security bureau continued denying her pension benefits long after it had clawed back the payments that were issued during her prison term. In other cases, pension benefits were usually resumed once the concerned practitioners paid back what they had received during their imprisonment.
Arrest, Sentencing, and Pension Suspension
Ms. Gao, around 60, and of Korean ethnicity, was arrested on October 10, 2018 and sentenced to a one-year prison term with a 5,000-yuan fine in May 2019. Her term ran from February 2019 to February 2020.
When she was released on February 16, 2020, she learned that her husband had been deceived into returning the 48,660 yuan issued to her pension account between February and September 2019. Her local social security bureau (full name: Suihua City Human Resources and Social Security Bureau) then stopped her pension payments completely beginning October 2019.
There was no written notice issued at the time of the pension suspension. Her husband was just verbally told by the social security bureau that she had been disqualified from receiving any pension benefits because of her prison sentence.
Uphill Battle to Get Her Pension Reinstated
Ms. Gao was an associate professor at Suihua University before retiring. She and the university both made contributions to her retirement account. Upon learning of her pension suspension, she talked to her former supervisor at the university.
The supervisor agreed that the social security bureau should not have suspended her pension for her faith in Falun Gong. He accompanied her to the social security bureau. Director Li Hongyan of the pension benefits office of the social security bureau received them.
Li cited No. 68 and No. 69 Documents issued by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security as the basis for Ms. Gao’s pension suspension. He, however, didn’t show her the documents. He reiterated that Falun Gong practitioners serving time for their faith must have their pension benefits forfeited during their imprisonment and beyond.
Ms. Gao argued that China’s constitution, social insurance law and labor law all protect workers’ hard-earned pension benefits, which should never be forfeited by any individual or government agencies under any circumstances. Retirees serving prison sentences should still be entitled to pension benefits, which stop only at the death of retirees. The No. 68 and No. 69 documents Li brought up were not enacted laws and could not govern the disbursement of pension benefits. Additionally, those documents directly violated the constitution, social insurance law and labor law.
Ms. Gao pointed out that social security bureaus across China are just fiduciaries tasked with collecting pension contributions, investing the contributions, and disbursing pension benefits. As such, her local social security bureau had no right to arbitrarily stop her pension benefits.
Li offered to issue partial pension benefits to her, but Ms. Gao objected and insisted that she was entitled to 100% of her retirement income. Li said that the only way to fully reinstate her pension would be for the trial court that sentenced her to issue a statement saying she had been wrongly convicted.
Ms. Gao said was impossible for her to provide such proof given the ongoing persecution of Falun Gong. Her supervisor later talked to Li without her presence and Li still insisted that they could at most issue her a monthly stipend of 1,000 yuan. Ms. Gao told her supervisor that she refused to accept this unfair resolution.
Ms. Gao and her supervisor met with Li again in May 2021. Li repeated that full reinstatement of her pension was out of the question. Ms. Gao then gave him a letter written by some legal experts explaining the illegality of pension suspension. He took the letter without saying anything.
When Ms. Gao went to see Li one month later, he had a long face and scolded her for giving him such a letter to read. He also stopped receiving her directly when she later tried to see him again many times. Each time she had to wait for the security guard to call Li to see if he would see her. Sometimes Li either didn’t pick up the phone or refused to meet with her.
Ms. Gao’s supervisor received a written reply from the social security bureau on June 7, 2021 regarding her pension suspension. The reply, for the first time ever, formally acknowledged that the social security bureau had disqualified Ms. Gao from receiving pension benefits starting in February 2019.
Ms. Gao was hit by a car in early May 2022, and took one month to recover from a resulting leg injury. Her supervisor again applied to have her pension reinstated, but to no avail.
Li told the security guard that he didn’t want to see Ms. Gao when she went to the social security bureau again on June 1, 2022. She tried to call him herself, but he didn’t pick up the phone.
At that time, a woman came looking for Li. She called him but he didn’t answer. She then messaged him on WeChat (a social media platform) and asked him why he didn’t pick up the phone. He responded that he thought it was a harassment phone call again from Ms. Gao.
After the woman told Ms. Gao what happened with Li, Ms. Gao asked her to pass some appeals materials to Li. The woman declined and went to see Li, who never met with Ms. Gao that day.
Ms. Gao’s husband was hospitalized for two weeks in December 2022 and later went to Harbin (capital city of Heilongjiang Province) for further examination. They struggled to pay his medical expenses. She again went to the social security bureau to seek her pension reinstatement, still to no avail.
Her husband’s monthly pension income is less than 3,000 yuan and they struggled to make ends meet.
Taking up Falun Gong
Ms. Gao used to suffer from numerous illnesses but she totally recovered after taking up Falun Gong. Her good health in turn enabled her to become a more productive professor. She was recognized as an excellent educator by both Heilongjiang Province and the Ministry of Education. She also twice won a provincial-level research award.
Her outstanding performance was featured in a provincial-level newspaper with a report titled “A Young Female Researcher.”
Ms. Gao also became more considerate by living by Falun Gong’s principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. She once helped a ten-year-old homeless girl who had been abandoned by her birth parents. She went through a lot of trouble and managed to return the girl to her foster parents. Ms. Gao’s story was featured in a local newspaper, with a report titled “Love Can Fend Off Chilly Wind.”
People who knew Ms. Gao well said they couldn’t understand why such a kindhearted and law-abiding person was being persecuted for her faith in Falun Gong.
Perpetrator’s contact information:
Li Hongyan (李洪岩), director of the pension benefits office of the social security bureau: +86-455-8388369 (office), +86-18904555557 (mobile phone)
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