(Minghui.org) A 75-year-old woman in Shanghai recently had her pension suspended due to the persecution of her faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Li Meizhen worked at the Jiangxi Province Coal Mine Machinery Factory before she retired. In August 2020, she received a call from Li Qing, the treasurer of her workplace, and was asked to mail the verdict of her four-year prison term given in 2012 for practicing Falun Gong and release certificate to the Jiangxi Province Social Security Bureau.
Ms. Li didn’t comply and her pension payment was thus stopped in September. She called Li to ask for the reason and was referred to the social security bureau. When Ms. Li called the social security bureau, no one responded to her.
In recent years, the Chinese communist regime has ordered that Falun Gong practitioners serving time for their faith be denied pension payments. Many practitioners have had their pensions suspended after their release to pay back the funds they had received while being imprisoned.
Ms. Li’s latest ordeal was proceeded by multiple arrests and imprisonment over two decades of persecution.
She was first arrested in December 1999 and detained for eight months at Zhangshu Detention Center in Jiangxi.
She was arrested again in January 2001 and held in the Zhangshu Brainwashing Center for two months.
Because of writing a letter to Meng Jianzhu, the then Communist Party Secretary of Jiangxi, Ms. Li was given three years at Jiangxi Women’s Forced Labor Camp in 2002.
She was given another two-year term at Shanghai Women’s Forced Labor Camp in August 2006, after she retired and moved to Shanghai.
During the Shanghai World Expo in 2010, Ms. Li was put under house arrest for more than six months.
She was arrested again in August 2012 and sentenced to four years in Shanghai Women’s Prison.
The police harassed her and closely monitored her for weeks on at least four occasions in 2019.
Falun Gong Practitioners from Shanghai Illegally Sentenced Again