(Minghui.org) A retired environmental engineer in her 80s survives by selling scrap recycling materials she found in trash bins, after having had her pension, her only source of income, suspended for nearly ten years, simply because of her faith in Falun Gong.
Ms. Wu Xiulan, 80, retired in 2002 after working 34 years at various positions in the Jinzhou City government, the Construction Bureau, and the Environmental Protection Institute. She was arrested on May 13, 2015, while putting up self-adhesive posters about Falun Gong. She was later sentenced to two years. Starting in April 2016, the Jinzhou City Human Resources and Social Security Bureau suspended her pension. After she was released in May 2017, she contacted them and demanded they reinstate the payments, but to no avail.
Ms. Wu was arrested again on July 5, 2019, when she went to a relative’s home to borrow money. She was given another three-year term and released in July 2022. She continued to seek the reinstatement of her pension after that, still to no avail.
The financial persecution caused tremendous difficulty to Ms. Wu, who has no children to take care of her. She couldn’t afford to repair her broken windows or heater, or the leaking sink and balcony. She often shivered in the cold of winter.
On March 3, 2025, Ms. Wu filed an administrative lawsuit with the Jinzhou Railway Court, demanding that the Jinzhou City 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.
She 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!”
Yet judge Fang Xu repeatedly refused to accept her case, with the excuse that she filed the complaint against the wrong agency.
With no other source of income, Ms. Wu was forced to collect scrap recycling materials and then sell them. Sometimes, some friends donated some food to her and her neighbors also gave her their cardboard boxes or plastic water bottles. To Ms. Wu, even a little help from kindhearted people was appreciated compared to how she’s been treated by the communist authorities.
Related Reports:
80-Year-Old Former Environmental Engineer’s Pension Suspended Since 2016 for Her Faith in Falun Gong
74-Year-Old Woman Arrested for Her Faith
Jinzhou City, Liaoning Province: Falun Gong Practitioners’ Pension Unlawfully Suspended
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