China: Reinstate Pension Benefits to Freed Prisoners of Conscience

March 2, 2026 Comments Off

Authorities Prolong Harms Against Retirement-age Activists Following Wrongful Detention

(Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders—March 2, 2026) New CHRD research shows that Chinese authorities are denying retirement-age prisoners of conscience their pension benefits following their releases from wrongful detention.

This practice compounds harms to prisoners of conscience (PoC), who are individuals wrongfully imprisoned for exercising or defending human rights, such as human rights defenders (HRDs), petitioners, and members of religious communities. It has left some affected individuals languishing in or on the brink of financial ruin. It is also in tension with provisions in the Prison Law on supporting released prisoners’ reintegration into society.

As the National People’s Congress (NPC) opens on March 5, bringing pension laws, regulations, and policies into conformity with international human rights law, and ending wrongful imprisonment of and pension benefit denial to PoCs should be a priority. Such steps would make meaningful Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s February 23, 2026 claim to the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council that older people in China “…must be able to enjoy dignity and no one should be left behind.”

CHRD’s research focused on nine PoCs over age 60 who have been released from prison. They are being denied their pension benefits on one of two different grounds. Six had already reached retirement age when they were imprisoned and were paid their pension while in custody; they were told months after their release they should not have received such payments, and will have to repay them, even at the cost of making them destitute. Three others reached retirement age after their release only to discover that authorities have decided to exclude payments they or their families made while they were in prison—in some cases for over a decade—from the years calculated towards the minimum social security eligibility.

The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention suggests that states refrain from holding persons aged 60 years and older in places of deprivation of liberty because the risk to their mental and physical integrity is heightened. Yet according to CHRD research, Chinese authorities arbitrarily detained 741 prisoners of conscience over 60 in 2025. It is possible that more individuals may be affected by pension denials than the nine cases documented in this new CHRD report.

At least five of the affected individuals have filed lawsuits or complaints about their pension denials often only to be told that the denial of their retirement benefits is consistent with Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MHRSS) policies. The loss of pension benefits for some people means they are deprived of their only means of income. One retirement-age activist told to repay her pension after being imprisoned shared her views with CHRD in January 2026:

Pensions are not free welfare provided by the state to every elderly person. They are the deserved benefits of…employees who have served society and their employers throughout their lives, and who have saved a certain amount of money for a certain number of years. They are the only basic guarantee for the survival of the elderly in their later years.

As another human rights activist told CHRD in January 2026:

The root cause of my pension problem is the two instances of political persecution and imprisonment I suffered. Of course, if the criminal cases are overturned and I am exonerated, the pension problem will be easily resolved.

CHRD believes these denials of pensions further infringe on the rights of individuals already wrongfully imprisoned in violation of international law, and urges Chinese authorities to stop jailing individuals for the exercise or defense of human rights.

“These policies compound the harm of wrongful convictions and disproportionally impact older persons who have been arbitrarily detained,” said Angeli Datt, research and advocacy coordinator at CHRD. “Pension denial is another weapon in Beijing’s arsenal to keep punishing prisoners of conscience after their release.”

Administrative policies establish restrictions on pension eligibility contrary to law

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees the right to adequate living standards and right to security in “old age” (Article 25). The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which the Chinese government ratified in 2001, guarantees the right to social security and the right to an adequate standard of living (Articles 9 and 11). The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which assesses states’ implementation of the ICESCR, has warned states against taking “deliberately retrogressive measures” that would prevent the full realization of the rights of the Covenant.

Article 44 of China’s Constitution states that the government will “implement a retirement system,” and that “the livelihood of retirees shall be ensured by the state and society.”

Under the Social Insurance Law, employees are eligible for their “basic old-age insurance” (pension) after they pay into the system for 15 years, and once they meet the retirement age of 60 for men and 50-55 for women (depending on their type of employment), though the retirement ages will be progressively increased starting in 2025. The law permits catch-up payments if the individual has not met the number of required years before retirement. The Labor Law and Labor Contract Law also require employees and their work units to participate in the social insurance program and pay the premiums. None of these laws contain any provisions that prohibit people in prison from contributing to or collecting their pensions.

Local social security offices that suspend or claw back pensions from prisoners of conscience have cited policies from the MHRSS or its predecessor the Ministry of Labor and Social Security. A 2001 ministry “reply letter” and provincial-level social security office “reply letters” state that retirees who have been suspected or convicted of a crime will have their pensions suspended. After their release, according to these documents, those individuals can either resume receiving their pensions or participate in pension adjustments (catch-up payments). These “reply letters” are administrative interpretations of legislation, not laws or regulations themselves. The “reply letters” which have been used to establish the government’s legal authority to deny pensions also state they are “available upon request,” rather than publicly available documents, in violation of the principle of legality.

When individuals are convicted by Chinese courts, their verdicts list the length, if any, of a custodial sentence and any fines or penalties. CHRD has reviewed thousands of court verdicts, none of which informed defendants that their pension eligibility would be suspended during the prison sentence.

In 2018, the MHRSS issued interim Regulations for Confirming Eligibility for Social Insurance Benefits. Those state that individuals serving a prison sentence lose their eligibility for pension benefits while in custody. The prison terms of four of the affected individuals’ whose cases CHRD reviewed commenced before these regulations were issued, and it is unclear which rules apply for them.

Government social security policies compound punishment for released prisoners of conscience

CHRD has examined the cases of nine PoCs who have been denied their pensions after being released from prison. While the pension denial policy is not formulated to specifically target PoCs, it compounds the wrong done to them because their imprisonment was unjust in the first place. Those who pursued legal action to reverse the pension denials said they were never told of such policies when they were imprisoned.

PoCs who retired before being imprisoned and told after release to repay benefits

Activist Xu Qin, 64, returned home to Gaoyu City in Jiangsu Province after being released from Nanjing’s Women’s Prison in July 2025 at the completion of a four-year prison sentence. She had been convicted of “inciting subversion of state power” for her work with two local human rights groups, including researching and writing articles and supporting other human rights defenders. Several UN experts raised concern in June 2024 that her detention appeared to be arbitrary, and that she had allegedly been subjected to torture in custody. Xu had already been receiving her pension when she was imprisoned. Gaoyu Social Security Bureau told Xu after her release that her monthly pension benefit payments would be docked by a set amount every month until the total amount paid to her while she was in prison was returned. In September 2025, Xu filed a complaint and later an administrative lawsuit.

Retired engineer and Chinese Communist Party member Dong Hongyi, 80, was released from a Hebei prison in March 2024 after spending 1.5 years in prison on charges of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” He had proposed amendments to the Party constitution ahead of the 20^th Party Congress. He received his pension payments during his period of imprisonment, but after his release, the Handan City Social Security Bureau began to deduct from those monthly benefits the payments he had received while he was in prison. In an appeal to the local public security bureau, Dong said he had no home or other income. In May 2025 he applied for a government information disclosure for information on the legal basis for the withholding of his pension.

Two retirement-age Falun Gong practitioners in Sichuan Province, Xia Huiqiong, 70, and Guo Bing, 65, had their pensions suspended by Liangshan Prefecture Social Security Bureau in October 2024 because they had served prison sentences. Xia was imprisoned between 2010 and 2015, and Guo from 2015 to 2018; both were sentenced for practicing Falun Gong. The women submitted multiple requests for their benefits to be reinstated. In February 2025, the social security office decided to restart their benefits at a reduced level; the difference went to the social security bureau as “repayment” of what they had received while in prison.

Retired Ningbo University teacher Hua Xiuzhen, 79, served two prison terms, in 2018 and 2024, for petitioning. Petitioning is an administrative system of filing complaints against local or provincial authorities with higher level officials. She began to petition after her daughter Tan Hua was left with a disability after receiving an unapproved rabies vaccine in 2014. After her 2018 conviction, Ningbo University and the Ningbo Social Security Bureau cancelled her pension, and in 2021 asked her to pay back the 140,000 RMB (USD 20,000) she had already received, which she cannot afford. She began to petition for the return of her pension and as a result received another prison sentence in 2024.

Pastor Yang Rongli, 67, has been serving a 15-year prison sentence since June 2025. Linfen City police arrested her in 2021 on charges of “fraud” for collecting donations for her church, Linfen Golden Lampstand, a non-state affiliated house church. Yang first had her pension suspended in October 2016 as a result of a seven-year prison sentence she served after being convicted of “gathering a crowd to disrupt traffic order” and “illegal occupation of agricultural land” in relation to her religious activities.

PoCs told that payments made during prison are not eligible

Activist Chen Shuqing, 60, completed a 10.5-year prison sentence at Qiaosi Prison in Hangzhou City in March 2025. He had been detained on charges of “subversion of state power” for his involvement in the China Democracy Party and his prodemocracy writings. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention determined in 2019 that Chinese authorities were arbitrarily detaining him. In December 2025, he applied for his retirement benefits upon becoming eligible, but the local Gongshu District social security office in Hangzhou told him that only 9 years and 10 months of the over 24 years’ worth of contributions he, his family and his work unit had paid into the system would be eligible due to his two prison terms. He must apply for a refund of the contributions that have been deemed ineligible and then repay them over a number of years. In February 2026, he applied for an administrative review of the ministry policies cited to deny his benefits. In a January 2026 article, Chen wrote:

The judgments in my two sentences only deprived me of my personal liberty and political rights for a certain period, but they did not deprive me of my socio-economic rights, including the right to social insurance.

Prodemocracy activist and writer Chen Xi, 71, spent 10 years in prison after being convicted for “inciting subversion of state power” for writing essays on human rights and democracy that were published on overseas websites. UN experts repeatedly raised concerns that his detention was punishment for his exercising his human rights. Following Chen’s release from prison in 2021, the social security bureau in Guizhou told him that the only eight of the 18 years that he and his family had paid in contributions were eligible towards his social security. He would be required to pay a further seven years of contributions before receiving his pension.

Christian writer and former doctor Xu Yonghai was sentenced to two years in prison between 2003-2006 on charges of “espionage” and “illegally providing state intelligence to foreign entities” for writing articles about Christians who had been tortured and prosecuted. In 2020, he made catch-up payments to his pension contributions to Xicheng District Human Resources Public Service Center in Beijing. After he turned 60 in 2021, he applied for his social security benefits. But the same Xicheng District office denied the application on the grounds that he been in prison. Xu has been petitioning for the return of his pension since 2024.

The Chinese government should end its practice of wrongfully detaining individuals for exercising their rights. Authorities should also take immediate steps to ensure that those affected by the denial of their pension benefits due to these wrongful convictions should have their eligibility and pension benefits reinstated. Finally, the government must ensure that regulations are consistent with national and international law.

For more information, please contact:

Sophie Richardson, Co-Executive Director, Chinese Human Rights Defenders,
sophierichardson[at]nchrd.org, +1 917 721 7473

Angeli Datt, Research and Advocacy Coordinator, Chinese Human Rights Defenders,
angelidatt[at]nchrd.org, +1 934 444 6155

Shane Yi, Researcher, Chinese Human Rights Defenders, shaneyi[at]nchrd.org