(Minghui.org) Since the Chinese communist regime launched a nationwide campaign against Falun Gong, a mind-body practice, in 1999, brainwashing centers have been established across the country to persecute practitioners and force them to renounce their belief.

The 610 Office, an extra-legal agency dedicated to orchestrate the persecution of Falun Gong, carries out the task of setting up brainwashing centers. To cover up the persecution, most of the brainwashing centers are known as “legal education schools” to the outside. The authorities also hire psychological experts or former practitioners who have given up the practice to brainwash practitioners.

In recent months, the communist regime has intensified the persecution of Falun Gong, and practitioners around the country have been sent to brainwashing centers. In January 2021 alone, 36 practitioners were reported to have been sent to brainwashing centers. 

Below are details about the brainwashing centers in Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia; Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province; Huainan City, Anhui Province; and Wuhan City, Hubei Province.

Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region

It was reported that the Chifeng police started a new round of persecution to eradicate Falun Gong during the second half of 2020. They came up with a list of more than 60 Falun Gong practitioners and targeted them one by one. Some practitioners were arrested; some were threatened with loss of their government jobs; some were threatened with the jobs of their children; and some were taken to the local Yuanbaoshan District Brainwashing Center, which was set up in the basement of Xinshijia Hotel. Wang Bing, secretary of the Yuanbaoshan District Political and Legal Affair Committee (an extra-judiciary agency tasked with overseeing the persecution), was the director. The majority of the personnel was from Hohhot Women's Prison.

The brainwashing center carried out harsh brainwashing sessions with threats and intimidation. Each room held a metal cage to confine practitioners who refused to renounce their faith.

Ms. Wang Cuihua, Ms. Cheng Chunying, and Mr. Lu Hongqiang from Ongniud Banner were taken to the brainwashing center in December 2020. 

Other practitioners who are also detained there include Li Xiufang, Wang Yanping, Wang Fenghua, Xue Xiangshan, Ning Yanmei, Liu Yaru, Jiang Haiyan, Jia Guanglin and Li Cuilan.

Police from the Malin Town Police Station broke into the home of Mr. Sun Liwen and Ms. Zhang Fengxia in Chifeng, under the pretext of taking a census of household accounts on December 22, 2020. They ordered the married couple to sign documents renouncing Falun Gong, but both refused. So the police attempted to take them to the brainwashing center.

When Ms. Zhang Fengxia's mother, 80, saw the police taking her daughter away, she suddenly fainted. The police decided not to arrest Ms. Zhang. The incident traumatized the elderly woman and she now struggles with a medical condition.

The police in Ongniud Banner went to Ms. Li Ronglan's rental home on December 25, 2020, but she was not home. They threatened her mother, who was living with her, and a visiting relative. They stayed at Ms. Li’s home for extended hours before leaving. Her mother was also terrified and forced to move out.

Personnel from the Hongshan District 610 Office banged on the door of Mr. Wang Aisheng and Ms. Song Guohua on December 25, 2020 and attempted to take the married couple to the brainwashing center but were not successful. The couple had to flee their home, leaving an over-80-year-old parent behind.

Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province

Over a dozen police officers from the Nanchang City Domestic Security Division and the Baihuazhou Police Station in Donghu District broke into the home of Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Xu (surname – given name unknown) on the morning of January 29, 2021. They confiscated a printer, a computer, and Falun Gong-related materials, and took her to the police station.

They arrested four more practitioners, including Ms. Gong Xiaohong, Ms. Zhu Yuling, Ms. Chen Hong, and Ms. Yuan Fengmei, outside of Wangzhongwang Supermarket and took them to the Baihuazhou Police Station as well. The practitioners were interrogated for over ten hours.

Ms. Gong, Ms. Zhu and Ms. Chen were transferred to a brainwashing center in the Nanchang County Committee Party School. The other two practitioners were released.

Wuhan City, Hubei Province

The Hongshan District Brainwashing Center of Wuhan City is located on the old Shizui Middle School campus. It is known that the Wuhan government spent six million yuan to remodel it, with surveillance cameras installed. It is mainly used to persecute Falun Gong practitioners and other dissidents.

Several Falun Gong practitioners were detained in the brainwashing center in 2019 and two in 2020. Staff members there once revealed that the authorities were planning to arrest more practitioners and take them there.

The assistants torture the practitioners by forcing them to stand all day and starving them. They also slander Falun Gong in front of the practitioners every day. These assistants are paid a high salary of 9,000 yuan per month and they work hard to keep the job. Some of them have been working there for six years.

Huainan City, Anhui Province

The Huainan City Brainwashing Center was established at the beginning of January 2021. Located in the Donghua Ecological Park in Wangfenggang Town, it has begun to admit Falun Gong practitioners.

In recent months, police and residential committee personnel have been harassing Falun Gong practitioners and their families in Huainan City. Some of them have threatened to live and eat at practitioners' homes.

Related article in Chinese:

内蒙古赤峰市多名外旗县法轮功学员被绑架到洗脑班