(Minghui.org) The Chinese regime has set up brainwashing centers across the country in order to persecute Falun Gong practitioners. Brainwashing sessions take place at provincial, city and county levels and are labeled as “legal education” in order to deceive the public.
Like prisons and forced labor camps, these are vicious places where Falun Gong practitioners are tortured and persecuted for their spiritual belief.
The 610 Offices consider themselves to be above the law. Without going through the courts or Procuratorate, 610 Office agents issue orders to officials in various government agencies and residential committees, having them arrest practitioners and send them to brainwashing centers. These crimes are committed stealthily.
From July 2013 to August 10, 2013, at least 108 practitioners were arrested by 610 Office agents, taken to brainwashing centers and brutally tortured there. The arrests took place across the country--in Heilongjiang, Jilin, Shandong, Beijing, Hebei, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan, Guangdong, Shannxi, Chongqing, Jiangsu, Guizhou, Xinjiang, and Gansu.
In addition to these known cases, many cases have not been exposed due to the Internet blockage.
The brainwashing centers are directly controlled by the 610 Offices and are publicly called “law education centers.” All detainees there are Falun Gong practitioners. They are brutally tortured in order to force them to give up their belief. Each brainwashing session typically lasts from 15 days to 2 months.
Most of the brainwashing centers have been set up at isolated, vacant buildings far away from city areas, so that the cries and screams during torture could not be heard by anyone. All of the windows have steel bars.
The “transformation” rooms are usually located in the basements. Practitioners are seperated from eath other, and each is put in a cell with three beds. The middle one is for the practitioner, and the other two are for the two peope assigned to monitor and torture the practitioner.
Agents of the 610 Offices have used three means to arrest practitioners and detain them in these brainwashing centers:
1. Deception – targeting practitioners at work. When practitioners were working, they were notified to go to their manager's office. There, 610 Office agents waited for them. They told the practitioners that they would be sent to a “seminar for a few days.” If practitioners refused to comply, they were threatened that their salaries would be withheld or that they would be fired.
2. Arrests at home– targetting retired practitioners. Practitioners were notified to go to the respective retirement centers. If they did, they were arrested there; if not, 610 Office personnel went to their homes and arrested them there.
3. Arrests on the street – targetting remaining practitioners. When practitioners went out, 610 Office personnel monitored them and found opportunities to arrest and take them to brainwashing centers.
When the families of these practitioners realized that their loved ones were missing, most of them paniced and first went to the practitioners' workplaces to look for them. The officials at the workplaces typically pretended not to know anything.
These arrests have a had detrimental effect on the families' lives. Many families of Falun Gong practitioners have suffered as a result.
Once, a female teacher was arrested, while her husband was working out of town. Their young daughter was left home alone without care. Luckily, the neighbors stepped in to help out. From this experience, the young girl developed such fear that at night she cried for her mother to hold her tight.
Every practitioner held at a brainwashing center was forced to pay more than 100 yuan for living expenses every day, even having to cover the expenses of the two agents assigned to monitor them. Some practitioners had these expenses deducted directly from their salaries. For practitioners not working at companies, 610 Office personnel went to their homes to extort the money from their families.
Some companies were forced to have two employees involved in the practitioner's brainwashing session. Every practitioner was isolated from the others; they were not allowed to meet or talk to each other. They were monitored even when they went to the restroom.
Practitioners were forced to watch vidoes or read books that defamed Falun Gong and write reviews afterward. The ultimate goal was to force practitioners to give up their belief and write the three statements to guarantee that they would no longer practice Falun Gong.
Practitioners who persisted in their belief were brutally tortured physically and mentally. During the daytime, they were cursed at and insulted. During the night time, they were beaten, kicked, slapped, shocked with electric batons, deprived of sleep for several days in a row, and tortured by other means. Their screams could be heard at night.
Due to the mental and physical torture, practitioners lived in constant stress and fear. Many steadfast practitioners were not released after one session; they were put into another session for more brainwashing or sent to a forced labor camp.
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Category: Brainwashing
