(Minghui.org) The Quzhou County Court in Hebei Province heard a local woman’s case against the Quzhou County Social Security Center on May 22, 2026. Ms. Qin Jingxiang, 65, accused the defendant of suspending her pension since January 2025.
Ms. Qin learned her pension was suspended shortly after she completed a 14-month prison term on January 16, 2025. She was incarcerated because she practices Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999. She went to the Postal Savings Bank when she returned home and learned that her retirement benefits for that month (January 2025) hadn’t been deposited.
Ms. Qin visited the Quzhou County Social Security Center to ask what happened. A staffer surnamed Yang told her to ask the local elementary school where she used to work. The school sent her back to Yang, who again referred her to the school. After being given the runaround many times, Ms. Qin filed a lawsuit against the Quzhou County Social Security Center. Lawyer Zhang from Beijing represented her in the case.
During the trial on May 22, 2026, Yang cited Notice 69, issued by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security in 2012, as the legal basis for suspending Ms. Qin’s pension. Effective since November 5, 2012, the notice required pension reduction or suspension for retirees of government agencies or state-owned enterprises who were subjected to administrative or criminal punishment.
Yang claimed that since Ms. Qin was jailed for 14 months, her pension should be suspended per Notice 69.
Lawyer Zhang countered that Notice 69 was not enacted by China’s law-making body, the People’s Congress, it should not have been used as a legal basis to suspend his client’s pension. Ironically, Notice 69 had a one-liner on the last page reading “This document is not to be made public.” He questioned how an internal document could be used as a legal basis for pension suspension.
Even if Notice 69 could be used as legal grounds, the State Council, which oversees the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, ordered all government agencies to follow the social insurance law starting on October 1, 2014.
Zhang presented two documents to confirm that his client formally applied for retirement in May 2016. One document was a retiree verification form, and the other was the census info collected on all retirees who received pension benefits. Both documents were issued by the Hebei Province government. Per the State Council’s policy, her pension should be subject to the social insurance law, not Notice 69.
Zhang added that item 9 of Article 2 in Notice 69 states an exception to imposing benefits reduction or suspension on retirees subjected to administrative or criminal punishments. That is, if a retiree has already been receiving their pension before such punishments, then the social insurance law should apply to the situation. Ms. Qin’s prison sentence stemmed from her most recent arrest in November 2023, years after she started receiving pension in May 2016. So even by Notice 69’s own rules, her pension should never have been stopped.
Given the above, the social insurance law should be the law applicable to the case, Zhang emphasized. The social insurance law was passed by the People’s Congress on October 28, 2010, and took effect on July 1, 2011. The law mandates that all retirees are entitled to pension benefits, regardless of whether they face any administrative or criminal punishments.
Article 16 of the social insurance law stipulates that those who have made cumulative contributions to their retirement accounts for at least fifteen years by the time they reach the statutory retirement age shall receive full amounts on a monthly basis. Ms. Qin had 38 years of service when she retired in May 2016, so she was entitled to monthly pension benefits.
Zhang pointed out that Article 8 of the social insurance law also specifies the roles and responsibilities of social insurance center to be providing social insurance services, including registration of retirees and distribution of benefits. Nowhere in the law does it say social insurance centers have the authority to reduce or revoke the rights and interests of retirees.
The defendant in the case also never notified Ms. Qin of her pension suspension as required by law. She found out about it when she checked her bank account.
The judge said he’ll make a ruling after consulting a collegial panel.
Persecuted for Practicing Falun Gong
Ms. Qin took up Falun Gong in spring 1995 and soon recovered from her arm pain and tonsillitis. After the persecution of Falun Gong began in July 1999, she held firm to her faith and was repeatedly targeted. She was arrested on September 23, 2004, and interrogated with torture. The police cuffed her hands to a bed and repeatedly slapped her face. They also ordered her to write statements to renounce Falun Gong and published her “case” in the county educators’ newspaper. She was deeply traumatized.
Several officers broke into her home on the afternoon of February 12, 2023, and confiscated two laptops, a printer, and 1,000 yuan in paper currency which had information about Falun Gong printed on it (a way practitioners in China raise awareness about the persecution given the strict censorship). One female officer opened the drawer in her coffee table and kicked it.
Ms. Qin was stopped by four plainclothes officers on November 16, 2023, on her way back home after she visited a relative. When she refused to go with the police, they forced her to comply by threatening to carry her away. When they heard she was arrested, her family rushed to the police department that afternoon to seek her release, but to no avail.
The police held Ms. Qin at the Handan City Third Detention Center. The Congtai District Procuratorate returned her case to the police several times for more evidence, before indicting her and moving her case to the Congtai District Court. She stood trial on October 15, 2024, and was sentenced to 14 months in prison.
Ms. Qin was released on January 16, 2025, only to have her pension suspended that month.
Related Report:
Quzhou County, Hebei Province: One Falun Gong Practitioner Sentenced and Another Faces Trial
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