Falun Dafa Minghui.org www.minghui.org PRINT

Various Methods Used at the Nanjing City Brainwashing Center to Persecute Falun Dafa Practitioners

July 28, 2005

(Clearwisdom.net) The Nanjing City Brainwashing Center, which is organized by the city government at the city level (many brainwashing centers are also set up at the district level in the city), is located inside the Bole Hotel, close to the Nanjing Yanziji Xinnian Machinery Factory and Nanjing Xiaozhuang Teachers' College.

The Nanjing City Brainwashing Center has a whole set of hypocritical and malicious systems for persecuting Falun Dafa practitioners. Moreover, the city also tries to promote this brainwashing model to other regions. Hereby I would like to expose some of what I know about this brainwashing center.

1. Releasing Fabricated Information to Shake Falun Gong Practitioners' Righteous Thoughts

This is the usual "modus operandi." When a Falun Gong practitioner is arrested on suspicion of having clarified the truth to the public in Nanjing, secret police hide the arrest. When vicious persons take this practitioner to a police department, the police, to make the arrest legal, usually make fabricated claims of evidence about him, faking the evidence they have collected, or how many days they have tapped his phone or followed him. Their purpose is to make the practitioner feel that they know everything and have all the necessary evidence against him. In this way they try to force some practitioners whose righteous thoughts are not strong to accept the so-called evidence. They also adopt some other despicable means. Not only do they let former practitioners who have abandoned Falun Dafa release such fabricated information, but they also pass on such faked information to the arrested practitioners' parents and coworkers. They want the family members and work unit leaders to tell the practitioners this false information and thus deceive them. Their goal is to let practitioners who do not have strong righteous thoughts believe the made-up information, making them think their family members are on their side and would not deceive them.

2. Threatening Those Who are Close to the Practitioner, the Brainwashing Center Attempts to Put Pressure on the Practitioner

Through rumors and threats, the police try to force the practitioner's co-workers, work unit leaders and family members to participate in deceiving and persecuting the practitioner. The police keep putting pressure on these people or use vested interests to lure them to give in.

For example, the police say that as long as the practitioner accepts "reformation" (i.e., brainwashing) and confesses, that all his problems he will be released. Otherwise, he will be sent to a labor camp. This, in fact, is a means of coercion. Furthermore, the interests of the practitioner's co-workers, working unit leaders, and family members will also be hurt.

The police use these intrigues to force those who are close to the practitioner to put pressure on the practitioner. The vicious persons also urge and encourage the practitioner's family members to beat and verbally abuse him, and even make the family members kneel down before him, or write him letters that on the surface seem to express the family members' longing for reunion, but in fact urge the practitioner to accept the brainwashing.

The brainwashing center wants to make use of the family members' affection to upset the practitioner's righteous thoughts. If the practitioner is not moved by this, people close to him then accuse him of "really not caring about the family members' affection" etc., and in effect also make them resent Dafa. This way the evildoers may cause some practitioners who were too rash in clarifying the truth to become irrational, be afraid to be misunderstood by those who are close to him, and let family affection persuade him. So, for these practitioners, although torture, deprivation of sleep, and other violent tactics had not made them yield, the lies from their co-workers, work unit leaders and family members deceived them and made them become irrational. A practitioner who was beaten by her family member (the brainwashing center ordered her family member to do so) told me of this kind of sadness. She said while crying, "At the beginning, when those police officers and guards beat me, I was very calm and did not feel any pain. I knew that Master was benevolently protecting me. My family member, however, questioned me repeatedly about what kind of practical benefits I could get from practicing cultivation, and told me how much loss my practicing cultivation could bring to the family. They also followed the police orders to beat and verbally abuse me. I felt utterly sad and could not calm down. In the end, the beating injured my whole body. I could not hold on any longer and thus followed my family member's request and wrote the three statements."

3. Using Hypocrisy and Threats to Prevent Practitioners from Staging a Hunger Strike and Resisting the Persecution

Some practitioners stage hunger strikes to resist the persecution. However, they are made irrational by the guards' hypocrisy and the family members' affections. The guards and family members keep telling the practitioners that they do not ask the practitioners to accept "reformation," but just want them to eat. The brainwashing center also lets the family members bring food to the practitioners who are on a hunger strike, so as to shake the practitioners' righteous action of resisting the persecution. The perpetrators also put a lot of salt in the porridge used for force-feeding, so even if only a little of the porridge gets into the practitioners' stomachs during force-feeding, the practitioners will want to drink lots of water.

Once the practitioners have taken a little bit of food, the brainwashing center will further use "deprivation of sleep," "punishment though forcing the practitioners to stand around the clock" and other cruelties to torture them in an attempt to make them accept the brainwashing. The so-called "just wanting you to eat" is therefore essentially a deception.

4. Detained in Solitary Confinement

When a practitioner is detained in solitary confinement, the only people he comes into contact with are those who are using their heresies and hypocrisies to help the police in brainwashing him. There are also the guards who have tortured him with violent beatings and deprivation of sleep. They pour cold water onto his head, prevent him from using the toilet, etc. There are also those who accompany him in order to monitor him around the clock and prevent him from practicing the exercises. The guards lie to the practitioners all the time, regarding who has and who has not been "reformed," or who has written the guarantee statement. "If you don't write the statement, you will be one of the few to be punished." This can make some practitioners whose righteous thoughts are not strong feel isolated and helpless.

5. 610 Office Arranges Everything, Even Who Will Say What

Practitioner A said that after he came out of the brainwashing center, "Guard A was so evil that he only knew how to beat people while guard B still talked and was kind to me. Because of his misunderstanding toward Falun Gong, guard B did..." Practitioner B said, "That was not right. Guard B just knew verbal abuse and beating people, while guard A said that he was sympathetic with Falun Gong practitioners. It was only that he had some misunderstandings."

Later they learned that it was all pre-arranged, which guard would see which practitioner, and what they would say. 610 Office leaders may assign one guard to beat a practitioner fiercely while assigning another to say, "I sympathize with you...the leaders don't let us talk to you. I just want to talk with you out of compassion." Such hypocrisy has caused some practitioners to let down their guards.

The so-called staff members of the brainwashing center hold a meeting every Monday to discuss how to brainwash and deceive the practitioners, and what attitude they need to take toward each specific practitioner. Even what they will say to the practitioners is preplanned. The brainwashing center may assign the officials and the guards to bring the hunger-striking practitioners some food in their own names. It even designates some individuals to show their sympathy with the practitioners and indicate their intentions to learn Falun Gong. This way the officials try to find out what the practitioners have done and with whom they have contact.

6. Vicious Tactics Utilized by This Most "Civilized" Brainwashing Center

Nanjing City Brainwashing Center boasts to the practitioners' family members and work units that it is the most "civilized" center and not as cruel as those in other regions. When the practitioners mention how brutal the guards are, the brainwashing center goes so far as to say that it was just an individual trait of a certain guard. It also cunningly says that what was reported on the Internet about force-feeding practitioners with pepper water in the brainwashing center never happened. To the contrary, what I saw was this - the practitioners were force-fed with a kind of extremely salty porridge, deprived of sleep for over twelve days in row, forbidden to take baths, and not allowed to use the restroom. They were also dowsed with cold water and subjected to other atrocities. Furthermore, what I saw was not the entirety of the gross abuses.

One of the female practitioners was not allowed to sleep for two months. The torture made her body as thin as a skeleton. She trembled, even while standing. In the winter when it was several degrees below freezing, the police opened up the windows and forced her to stand in the room while she wore only one thin layer of clothing. As her body could not bear it, she fell asleep even while she was standing. The brainwashing center then ordered the guards to pour cold water on her face whenever she closed her eyes. Sometimes the guards also forced the practitioner to stand barefoot in cold water. When she needed to use the restroom, a male guard just gave her a pot, saying that if she wanted to relieve herself she needed to do so in front of him. In the end, when the practitioner was extremely weak, her family members, under threats, forcibly held her hand and made her write the so-called "three statements." There were also practitioners whose hands the guards held and who were forced to write the three statements that way.

What was even more evil was putting a photo of Master Li on the floor and then forcing the practitioners to step on the photo. The brainwashing center even tampered with the drawn image of the founder of Falun Gong. It is so evil that it is beyond description. They then forced the practitioners to look at the drawing. After the practitioners tried to restore the image with a pen, the guards also laughed at the practitioners, saying that his drawing was not good. These vicious persons also wrote Master Li's name everywhere on the floor. The practitioners who were unwilling to step on the names were forced to stand all day long for several days in a row.

There was one guard who said viciously, "You who practice Falun Gong should not be sent here in the first place. You should be directly taken out and shot." He even said to the practitioners while holding a lighter, "If you still do not accept reform I will 'self-immolate' you."

7. Use of the Fiendish "No Reform, No Release" Policy to Undermine Practitioners' Righteous Thoughts

Brainwashing center officials said that the top government level issued an order stating that from 2004 on, those practitioners who have finished serving their given terms of forced labor but had not yet been "reformed" are not allowed to go home. They will instead be sent to brainwashing centers. This also applies to those who have come out of the brainwashing centers not "reformed." This malicious order has driven the practitioners' family members and some practitioners whose righteous thoughts are not strong into despair. Some practitioners in labor camps who had refused to be reformed for three years yielded under such pressure.

In fact, even under the current Chinese laws this vicious order is completely illegal. The practitioners and their family members can resort to legal means to protect their rights, and demand the unconditional release of practitioners. They should not be intimidated by this immoral order.

8. Former Practitioners Who Have Abandoned Falun Dafa, and Professional Brainwashing Helpers Have Participated in the Persecution

All those who assist in "reforming" practitioners, and do not personally participate in torturing the practitioners, can easily deceive people. In fact, they are the ones who have instructed the guards to beat the practitioners and who have told the officials which practitioners should be subjected to sleep deprivation. While before the practitioners they say that it is out of humanitarian considerations they have not sent practitioners to labor camps. When questioned by the practitioners about the boarding expenses of up to 10,000 yuan, they became uncomfortable and became tongue-tied. These brainwashing helpers earn a wage of 5,000 yuan per month, and furthermore, all their boarding and transportation are free. What is even less known is how much bonus they get.

Those who have abandoned Falun Dafa usually take the approach of "learning the Fa together with the practitioners," so as to try to lure the practitioners down an evil path. When "learning," they quote the Fa out of context and give a casual definition and make an arbitrary explanation of the Fa to confuse the practitioners in their understanding of the Fa. They also use their so-called personal experiences to provide support for the fabricated, official propaganda. Some of them had been badly persecuted before, but they still want to provide credibility for the fabricated lies. They also adopt the approach of taking turns in trying to instill their evil realizations into the minds of the practitioners.

Some members of the Chinese Communist Party who have disguised themselves as lay Buddhists force the practitioners to learn Buddhist religion or other things, or make them drink alcohol.

9. Covering up the Persecution

To cover up the persecution, the brainwashing center orders those who have abandoned Falun Dafa to bring banners of appreciation to the brainwashing center, write the so-called statements of non-existence of the persecution, or prepare something that glorifies the evil Party.

The brainwashing center officials also threaten those who have been persecuted, trying to force them not to publicize even their own personal experiences of the persecution.

10. Destroying Human Nature and Inciting and Threatening Practitioners to Betray Others

One new practitioner did not have a deep understanding of the Fa. The 610 Office agents deceived her by saying, "Who has taught you? Whom else do you know? Revealing their identities is for their wellbeing," and other nonsense. They used the threat of not permitting her to go home to force this new practitioner to betray other practitioners.