(Minghui.org) While 65-year-old Ms. Chai Xiufang is serving a five-year term for practicing Falun Gong, the authorities ordered her family to pay back the 650,000 yuan pension she received over the past ten years and threatened to auction off her home if they didn’t comply.
Ms. Chai Xiufang, of Baoji City, Shaanxi Province, was arrested on April 11, 2024, during a police sweep of local Falun Gong practitioners. Her son tried to stop the police from ransacking their home, only to be handcuffed and taken to the police station. He was released around 2 a.m. the next morning. Ms. Chai’s husband, who became incapacitated after a stroke, relied on her for care. The police however kept her detained. She was sentenced to five years by the Jintai District Court sometime in 2025, and is currently serving time at the Shaanxi Province Women’s Prison.
In early February 2026, the local authorities worked with Ms. Chai’s former employer, the Yandi Garden, a tourist site, ordering her family to return the 650,000 yuan pension payments she had received in the past ten years. They claimed that because of her prison sentence, she was no longer eligible for the retirement benefits, despite no such stipulatioin in China’s labor laws. They threatened to take over her home and put it up for auction if they didn’t return the money.
This is the second time that Ms. Chai has been sentenced to prison for practicing Falun Gong. She was arrested on November 22, 2012, and taken to the Shibahe Police Station. The police took her to a detention facility in the Lingyun Hotel at night and tortured her on a tiger bench there. She appeared in the Weibin District Court on April 3, 2013. Her lawyer entered a not guilty plea for her. The judge still sentenced her to prison (exact term unknown). She was released in February 2016.
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