(Minghui.org) A 78-year-old woman in Suining City, Sichuan Province, was detained for one day in September 2026 because she wrote a letter seeking the reinstatement of her pension, which has been suspended since August 2025. She is currently on bail and facing prosecution.
Ms. Zhao Yan, born on December 17, 1947, served a six-month prison term from July to December 2024, for her faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999. The Chuanshan District Social Security Bureau instructed her former employer, Suining City Third Hospital, to stop her pension in August 2025. (See the related reports below for details of her prison sentence and pension suspension.)
Ms. Zhao delivered a “Statement Requesting the Full and Lawful Disbursement of My Pension” to the Social Security Bureau in person in January 2026. She also filed a complaint against the agency with the relevant agencies at the central-, provincial-, and municipal-level governments. She received no response.
Around 8 p.m. on September 15, 2026, Ms. Zhao heard knocks on her door. She opened the door to see over ten people outside. When she asked what they were there for, they didn’t answer and barged into her home. She recognized one of them as grid manager Wu Chunyan (China divides each city into small grids and has grid managers monitor citizens) and another as officer Zhang Yue from the Jiefu Road Police Station.
The police flashed two pieces of paper and said one of them was a search warrant. Ms. Zhao tried to stop them from raiding her home, and was handcuffed instead. Five people applied pressure on the handcuffs, causing her great pain.
One officer hurled foul language at Ms. Zhao, and she learned later he was the captain of the Suining City Domestic Security Office.
After nearly three hours of ransacking, the police confiscated three Falun Gong books, a portrait of the founder of Falun Gong, a desktop computer, a laptop, and a flash drive. They took Ms. Zhao to an unknown location and scanned her face and took her fingerprints.
The police ordered Ms. Zhao to sit in a metal chair. She refused to comply and they pressed her down on the chair. They then questioned her as to why she submitted her request to the Social Security Bureau in January 2026. She replied that her pension was her lawful asset and that the Social Security Bureau had no authority to stop her pension.
The police showed photos taken of her without her knowledge. They ordered her to sign the photos and prepared statements to renounce Falun Gong. She refused, and an officer wrote “the suspect refused to sign.”
At 4 p.m., the police took Ms. Zhao to the Jiefu Road Police Station, where they collected her fingerprints and toe-prints. She again refused to sign statements to renounce her faith. Her son was summoned to the police station around 6 p.m. to pick her up. Ms. Zhao is currently on bail and facing prosecution.
Related Reports:
78-Year-Old Sichuan Woman Sentenced to Six Months for Practicing Falun Gong
78-Year-Old Sichuan Widow Indicted for Practicing Falun Gong
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