(Minghui.org) On June 10, 1999, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) created an organization similar to the group that directed China’s Cultural Revolution, with strong similarities to Nazi Germany’s Gestapo. This organization is known as the “610 Office.”
While the Cultural Revolution Group was dissolved ten years later and the Gestapo’s secret slaughter was stopped twelve years after it began, the 610 Office still exists twenty-two years after its founding and remains active in directing the persecution of Falun Gong.
In terms of organizational structure, the Cultural Revolution Group consisted of a few core members at the central government level and didn’t have permanent branches at the provincial level or lower government levels. Whenever a task was to be completed, the core members would simply appoint certain officials to carry it out. The Gestapo was made up of five departments, each tasked with specific responsibilities.
In contrast, the 610 Office has branches in every city, county, and village, and within various government agencies throughout China. It has at least 15,000 formal employees on the payroll and receives funding from the central government.
How Did the 610 Office Come to Be?
Since Mr. Li Hongzhi introduced Falun Gong (also called Falun Dafa) to the public in May 1992, this ancient spiritual and meditation discipline quickly spread through word of mouth in China due to its effectiveness in improving health and elevating spirituality. By 1999, government estimates placed the number of Falun Gong practitioners between 70-100 million in China alone. People who practiced Falun Gong came from all walks of life, including high-ranking government officials and military officers.
In the second half of 1998, several retired cadres from the National People’s Congress, led by Qiao Shi, conducted a detailed investigation into Falun Gong and concluded that “practicing Falun Gong brings only benefits and no harm.” At the end of the year, they presented their findings to the Central Politburo, headed by Jiang Zemin at the time.
Jiang had been promoted as the top CCP official primarily because of his role in supporting the massacre of the student protests on Tiananmen Square in June 1989. With his otherwise lackluster career, Falun Gong’s popularity and Qiao’s investigation only made Jiang more furious and jealous.
Xin Ziling, former president of the state-affiliated Chinese Military Academy Press, disclosed that Jiang intended to establish his legacy by persecuting Falun Gong. However, his proposal wasn’t supported by the Politburo Standing Committee. Determined to advance the persecution, he set up the 610 Office, without going through the National People’s Congress or getting the approval of the State Council.
Jiang established the 610 Office on June 10, 1999 and gave the extra-legal agency absolute power over the law and the authority to mobilize all resources under the CCP, including public security, and the political and judiciary branches. In other words, the 610 Office is holding the entire government as hostage to carry out the persecution of Falun Gong.
It’s under the directive of the 610 Office that the Tiananmen Self-immolation Hoax and other hate propaganda were manufactured, alleging that Falun Gong practitioners committed murder, suicide or were extremists.
The Collapse of China’s Legal System
Around the end of 2000, Jiang expressed his dissatisfaction at the 610 Office’s effectiveness in executing the persecution. He ordered the Public Security Bureau and local police stations in all cities to establish their own branches of the 610 Office. Since then, 610 Office branches emerged across the country. Many police chiefs also became the head of the local 610 Office. At the provincial or city level, the deputy secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Committee (PLAC) is also appointed as the 610 Office director.
Similar to the 610 Office, the PLAC is another extra-judiciary agency overseeing the police and judiciary body and tasked with persecuting Falun Gong.
The expansion of the 610 Office resulted in the complete collapse of any independence of any government functions. Before the persecution of Falun Gong, different agencies were given different responsibilities. After the persecution began, the establishment of the 610 Office broke this rule, with the new agency given absolute power to control law enforcement, the judicial system, and every other aspect of society. With its long reach all the way down to the local street committees, the entire country is at the disposal of the 610 Office in the persecution of Falun Gong.
The 610 Office Exposed
One of the persecution policies of the 610 Office is the implication of Falun Gong practitioners’ family members. Family members also face descrimination and deprivation of their rights to housing, jobs, or pension, if the practitioners refuse to give up their faith. As hate propaganda was spread by the government across the country, practitioners’ family members were often forced to sign materials demonizing Falun Gong.
When a practitioner is arrested by agents of the 610 Office, it’s usually up to the 610 Office to determine their prison sentence, even before the case goes through the legal process (i.e., indictment by the procuratorate and sentencing by the court). If there is not enough evidence to convict a practitioner, the police will fabricate evidence.
The unrestricted power of the 610 Office has spread like a virus within the CCP, leading to further corruption and exploitation of the Chinese people, including seizing land or other personal property.
Popular grievances are on the rise. According to available data, there were 8,700 protests in 1993 and around 10,000 protests in 1994. Ten years later, the number increased tenfold, up to 87,000 in 2005. In 2010, it’s estimated that at least 180,000 protests took place in China.
The corruption of the legal system has also led to the total collapse of people’s morality and social order, chaos that even the CCP itself can’t control.
Under these circumstances, the veil over the secret empire of the 610 Office was lifted. In 2013, Li Dongsheng, former Head of the 610 Office and Vice Minister of China’s Ministry of Public Security, was removed from his position.
Before becoming the head of the 610 Office in 2009, Li assumed the position of deputy head of the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television in July 2000. He was instrumental in fabricating hate propaganda against Falun Gong, and was involved in staging and directing the “Tiananmen Self-immolation Hoax” of 2001.
Li’s 2013 downfall was the first time that the title “Head of the 610 Office” was revealed to the general public.
Since then, the giant empire of the 610 Office began to fall like a house of cards.
Shortly after Li’s arrest, Zhou Yongkang, former head of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Committee, who appointed Li to head the 610 Office, was also arrested in late 2013.
After the 18th National Congress in 2012, 96 top officials, most of whom were involved with the PLAC and the 610 Office, were arrested and sentenced for corruption.
The Internal Purge
There is a saying, “He who is unjust is doomed to destruction.” Many followers of the CCP’s persecution policy have found themselves on the chopping block.
In recent months, the CCP has been holding a movement to investigate corruption over the past 20 years. Up to 72,000 police officers and government officials have received punishment so far. While the CCP never punishes any officials in the name of their involvement in the persecution of Falun Gong, their downfall nevertheless sends a warning to their peers, who in private know how much evil they’ve done over the course of the persecution.
Although the CCP claims to be atheist, many of its officials often go to temples, burn incense, and pray for promotions in their political career. Some look for fortune tellers to predict their future.
Even though the persecution of Falun Gong is still going on and the 610 Office still exists, the fact that 610 Office agents are facing a massive internal purge indicates that the CCP is reaching the end in sustaining the persecution. It has brought this situation onto itself and it is also the reflection of heaven’s will.
Facing Justice
On May 12, 2021, one day before “World Falun Dafa Day,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken announced the decision to sanction Yu Hui, former director of the Chengdu City 610 Office in Sichuan Province. This is the first time since the persecution began that the U.S. has openly sanctioned a 610 Office member.
Earlier in March 2021, Falun Gong practitioners in 38 countries submitted a name list of about 9,300 agents from the 610 Office at all levels in China to their respective governments, requesting that their governments sanction these perpetrators of human rights abuses as well as their family members, by barring them from entry and freezing their assets.
Although the CCP is now purging PLAC and 610 Office agents due to international scrutiny, the sins accrued from persecuting Falun Gong practitioners over the past 22 years aren’t limited to these two agencies alone. When the CCP announced the campaign to persecute Falun Gong 22 years ago, it has already predetermined its own destruction.
We invite more Falun Gong practitioners in China to collect information about 610 Office personnel (including but not limited to their name, position, gender, age, province, affiliated agency, persecution cases, address, police ID, phone number) and submit the information to the Minghui editorial board. Minghui will not only publish the information on the list of perpetrators, but will also submit the information to various governments and relevant agencies.
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Category: News Commentary
