Pension Wiped Out by Jail Time Family Church Elder Xu Yonghai Vows to Seek Justice
Xu Yonghai, a Beijing Christian house church elder who has publicly supported China’s democracy movement, reached retirement age this year and was supposed to receive a pension. Recently, however, the authorities denied Xu Yonghai his pension benefits on the grounds that he had been sentenced to prison. In anger, Xu Yonghai decided to go on a petition.
Xu Yonghai, who turned 60 years old this year, went to the Beijing Human Resources Service Center earlier to make up for his pension insurance and was scheduled to receive his pension this month. But a recent document issued by the authorities disrupted his entire plan.
Beijing Prisoner of Conscience Xu Yonghai’s 20 years of service was zeroed out by the authorities to deprive him of his pension benefits
Beijing house church elder Xu Yonghai was put on the job and a house church in Guangdong was banned from meeting
Beijing house church member Xu Yonghai to fast and pray for 30 days
Xu Yonghai: “‘If a staff member has been dismissed from the service or has received criminal punishment, the years of service will be calculated from the date of new participation in the service’, just a document, a document from 1959. You do not make sense, it was a planned economy and now is completely different, and what do I do in the future? You can’t zero in on your pension, and you can’t see a doctor. I’m over 60 years old, how to find a job, it’s illegal to find a job at the age of 60, you can only rely on God!
On January 18, 2021, Xu Yonghai (pictured), who was deprived of his pension, petitioned the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Letters and Calls. (Exclusive courtesy of Xu Yonghai)
Xu Yonghai, a doctor who graduated from university in 1984 and joined the workforce, was convicted in 2003 of “spying and illegally providing state information for foreign countries” and sentenced to two years in prison for writing articles and open letters in solidarity with Christians who had been tortured. He was upset that his nearly 20 years of service were wiped out by the authorities.
Xu Yonghai: “A large part of the labor income was given to the state, was given to the unit, the unit to keep the future pension ah, share the house ah. The pension is definitely personal property, but now it is deprived of it, which is completely unreasonable. The court only deprived me of my political rights, not my property, you can’t take away my labor income according to your documents.”
After his release from prison, Xu Yonghai lost his job and has been under constant surveillance by the authorities.
Xu Yonghai: “At least four or five thousand yuan (per month). If you think about it, if I get 4,000 or 5,000 yuan a month, that’s 50,000 yuan a year. If I live for 20 years, it will be one million. If I were to be hospitalized, I would not be able to live without 100,000 or 200,000 yuan a time. Many of the people around me have been in jail, but they are all retired. I don’t know why this is happening to me.”
He relies on his wife, who used to be a nurse, to do odd jobs to make ends meet
At the time of our interview on Monday (18), Xu Yonghai was petitioning the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Letters and Calls. He said he would not rule out taking legal action in order to get justice.
Beijing disabled rights activist Ni Yulan (left) and Xu Yonghai (right), also a church elder. (Exclusive courtesy of Ni Yulan, date of photo not known)
Beijing-based disabled rights activist Ni Yulan, also a church elder, also does not receive a pension. She said Xu Yonghai has been unemployed since completing his sentence in 2006 and relies on his wife, a former nurse, for odd jobs to make ends meet.
Ni Yulan: “After Xu Changlao was arrested, his wife was later transferred, and his wife resigned and later found another company. Now Xu Changlao’s family income is dependent on his wife’s salary alone to maintain, the two of them are afraid to even have children. His wife had several pregnancies and then had no choice but to get rid of the children.”
Xu Yonghai had openly supported the democracy movement during the June 4 incident in 1989. In recent years, he has become more concerned about religious freedom in China as a devout Christian. Ni Yulan, a lawyer by training, believes Xu Yonghai’s ordeal is related to his background and reflects a gray area in the authorities’ review of pension eligibility.
Ni Yulan: “Whether you can get a pension or not depends on the word of those in power. As Chinese people, you should at least let us have a living wage to survive. Now we are not allowed to work and we are not allowed to get our pensions, are you going to starve us to death?”
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