(Minghui.org) A 63-year-old woman in Urumqi City, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is struggling to make a living because she has no retirement benefits.

Ms. Li Xianghong has a master’s degree and used to work as a lecturer at the Xinjiang Engineering Institute (now part of Xinjiang University). She took up Falun Gong in 1997 and soon recovered from Meniere’s syndrome and other diseases. After the communist regime launched a nationwide campaign against Falun Gong in July 1999, she held firm to her faith and was repeatedly targeted.

Ms. Li went to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice in August 1999. After she returned, her school ordered her colleagues, who were supposed to be on their summer vacation, to talk to her every day, and tried to pressure her to write a statement to renounce Falun Gong.

Ms. Li’s father, a retired psychiatrist with a very negative view about Falun Gong due to the Chinese Communist Party’s demonizing propaganda, blamed her for having “mental illness” for holding onto her faith, and sent her to a psychiatric hospital twice for “treatment” from October to December 1999.

Ms. Li was shocked with electricity, and forced to take pills that damaged her central nervous system. The doctor gave her shots to lower her blood sugar and then force fed her with porridge after she fainted. She also faced sexual harassment by the male patients housed in the same ward. She held a hunger strike to protest during her second hospitalization, and was then released.

Ms. Li was arrested again in August 2000, and sentenced to three years in April 2001. Given her physical condition, she was allowed to serve time outside of prison.

Ms. Li’s school fired her immediately after her wrongful conviction. They also wiped out her 16 years of service and pension contributions from her retirement account, which left her with no pension benefits. By law, employers have no right to empty their employees’ retirement accounts.

Ms. Li’s husband filed for divorce in late 2001 and was given sole custody of their child. Almost all of their marital assets went to him as well. Ms. Li was given only 4,000 yuan, which was later seized by police.

Ms. Li was arrested again in March 2002 and held at the Shuimogou Detention Center. The police took turns to investigate her, without allowing her any sleep. Days later, the police wrapped each of her arms with rope, crossed them behind her back to the furthest extend, and then hit her arms against the wall. She screamed in extreme pain.

Ms. Li was later sentenced to 11 years at an unknown time. She was admitted to the Xinjiang Women’s Prison and subjected to various forms of abuse, including beatings, sleep deprivation, and brainwashing. From March 2007 to January 2008, she was held in a solitary confinement that was about 2.5-meter (8.2 feet) long and 1.6-meter (5.2 feet) wide. There were no windows. She was handcuffed and shackled with the cuffs and shackles linked to a ring anchored to the floor (see image below). The guards played videos smearing Falun Gong around the clock. She went on a hunger strike in protest and was force-fed.

Torture illustration: Handcuffed and shackled

Ms. Li later had multiple episodes of heart problems and was released on parole in March 2012. In 2021, she was hospitalized for heart surgery and cancer chemotherapy. As she had no medical insurance, her family struggled to cover her medical expenses (totaling hundreds of thousands of yuan).

Ms. Li reached retirement age [55 for white-collar women in China] around 2018, with no pension benefits. Living alone, she has struggled to get by all these years.

Related Reports:

Lecturer Li Xianghong Sentenced to Eleven Years in Prison

Former Xinjiang University Instructors Held in Prison for Seven Years