(Minghui.org) An 87-year-old woman in Tianjin is struggling to make ends meet, after her pension was stopped in March 2024 because of her faith in Falun Gong.

Ms. Cong Peishan began to practice Falun Gong in 1995, when she was 56. Her atrophic gastritis soon disappeared. After the Chinese communist regime ordered the persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999, she remains firm in her faith and has been repeatedly targeted.

Ms. Cong was sentenced to four years by the Nankai District Court on December 24, 2000. She was subjected to various kinds of torture in jail.

Ms. Cong was arrested again in March 2021. Prior to her arrest, Ren Yu, the deputy chief of the Nankai District Sports Center Police Station, ordered her to renounce Falun Gong. When she refused to comply, Ren threatened to have the local court sentence her and her employer strip her of any retirement benefits.

On September 30, 2021, after six months of detention, Ms. Cong was sentenced to three years by the Nankai District Court. She was admitted to Division Five at the Tianjin City Women’s Prison.

Sun Wei, head of the Fifth Ward, and Zheng Yijun, supervising officer of Squad Three, Team One, denied Ms. Cong the right to use the restroom and forbade her from taking a shower for two weeks, even after she was forced to relieve herself in her pants. The guards also ordered inmates Li Ming and Liu Lihong to torture her.

Ms. Cong only had one pair of winter pants. When she washed them, it usually took days for them to dry, so she could not wear them again right away. Sometimes, the guards opened the window to freeze her while she was wearing thin pants.

The guards also made Ms. Cong stand for four and a half hours during the night security shift, even though prison rules state that those over 60 shouldn’t be assigned to night shifts. She almost fell several times when she struggled to remain standing.

In addition, the guards forced Ms. Cong to take drugs that were toxic to her central nervous system.

When Ms. Cong was released in March 2024, the guards forced her to write, “I wasn’t subjected to any beatings, verbal abuse, or any form of corporal punishment while in prison.”

Upon returning home, Ms. Cong was saddened to learn that her husband had fallen ill while worrying about her after her sentencing. He passed away while she was still in prison.

Ms. Cong was dealt another hard blow when the local social security bureau reduced her monthly 8,000 yuan pension to 693 yuan, with the excuse that she practiced Falun Gong. The condition for her to get the 693 yuan monthly payment was that she write a statement, promising not to practice Falun Gong anymore. She refused to comply and has since received no pension benefits.