(Minghui.org) After the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started persecuting Falun Gong, a meditation system following the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, in 1999, it has developed numerous persecution techniques, including mass arrests, brutal torture, brainwashing, prosecution of the victims without any legal basis, implication of family members, omnipresent surveillance of citizens, and involuntary commitment to mental hospitals.
For instance, according to the Minghui.org website, as of December 27, 2021, at least 865 Falun Gong practitioners across China have been held in mental hospitals at one point or another over the years. Ms. Zhang Caixia, a healthy woman in Baoji City, Shaanxi Province, was seized by police on her way to work and taken to a mental hospital. She was ordered to write statements renouncing her faith. When her husband sought her release, he was also threatened to write the same statements or also be arrested.
Non-practitioners in China have also been increasingly subjected to similar persecution tactics. Li Tiantian, a language teacher in Yongshun County, Hunan Province, posted on social media on December 17, expressing her support for a Shanghai teacher who was targeted for voicing doubts about the actual casualties of the Nanjing Massacre. Two days later, Li’s local education bureau and her family sent her to a mental hospital.
Li is not the only non-practitioner targeted. During the pandemic, numerous citizens have been affected by the draconian “zero-Covid” measures. In Xi’an, a modern city with a population of 13 million and the capital of Shaanxi Province, two pregnant women miscarried outside of local hospitals, after they were rejected admission for failing to produce valid COVID-19 test results.
Additionally, the Uighurs, Christians, and dissidents (including Hong Kong-ers who dared to stand up to the CCP) have also found themselves victims of the communist regime.
Experts: China’s Machinery of Repression now a Permanent Feature of Governance Apparatus
Two experts summarized well the extension of the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong to the general public.
In the article titled “Keeping Our Eyes Open to China’s Machinery of Repression: Caylan Ford and David Matas For Inside Policy” on the Canadian Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s website, documentary filmmaker Ford and renowned human rights lawyer Matas pointed out: “(T)he machinery of oppression that was built to crush the Falun Gong has metastasized, becoming a permanent feature of Communist Party’s governance apparatus. The persecution of Uyghur Muslims and, to a lesser extent, faithful Christians, is carried out by many of the same people, with the same tactics, that the Falun Gong have endured for decades: mass imprisonment, torture, forced labour, religious de-conversion and, perhaps, organ harvesting. Those who ignored the brutal repression of Falun Gong for decades cannot now claim to be surprised.”
Consequences for the Perpetrators
This CCP machinery that persecutes Falun Gong contains three major components: The Political and Legal Affairs Committee (PLAC), the 610 Office, and the law enforcement and judicial systems.
The PLAC is the command center and policy-making organ for the persecution. It sets the policy and oversees the overall persecution. The 610 Office is the executive organ. The police, Procuratorate (public prosecutors), court, and the judicial agencies are the actual implementers.
The PLAC has a high organizational status within the CCP apparatus. The head of the central PLAC used to be a member of the CCP Politburo Standing Committee – the highest power unit within the CCP organs. At the local level, the PLAC head, who usually also serves as the head of the local 610 office, is a standing committee member of the local CCP Party committee.
Overseeing the law enforcement forces, with over ten million staff members and a budget exceeding military spending – due to the CCP’s “stability management” efforts, the PLAC has almighty resources.
As a result, the PLAC system grew into the “Second Power Center” when Zhou Yongkang served as the head of the central PLAC. Zhou, a die-hard loyalist of retired CCP head Jiang Zemin, wouldn’t listen to then CCP head Hu Jintao and even reportedly worked on a coup to overthrow the new CCP head Xi Jinping.
In 2013, Xi started to purge his political opponents in the PLAC and its affiliated law enforcement system.
Many top officials were taken down under corruption charges, including Zhou Yongkang, then central PLAC head; Meng Hongwei, former chairman of Interpol and former Party Committee member and vice minister of the Ministry of Public Security; Fu Zhenghua, former executive vice minister of the Ministry of Public Security; Sun Lijun, former vice minister of the Ministry of Public Security; Gong Dao’an, former vice mayor of Shanghai and director of Shanghai Public Security Bureau; and Deng Huilin, former vice mayor of Chongqing and director of the Chongqing Public Security Bureau.
According to websites of the Supreme Procuratorate and the Supreme Court, as well as reports from the Ministry of Public Security, the PLAC system began a “reorganization” in late February 2021, opening a hotline for the public to report crimes. The Supreme Court announced “exclusive charges for law enforcement officers, public prosecutors, and judges;” the website of the Supreme Procuratorate stated to “sift through a sieve” and “backtrack” if any cases violated the law in the past; and in 2021, authorities announced a “backtrack for 20 years.”
The CCP Central Commission for Discipline Inspection announced on September 1, 2021 that from January to July of 2021, more than 100 PLAC officials within the ranks at the division and bureau levels or higher were investigated and punished.
At first glance, these officials were investigated for the crimes of corruption. But a closer look revealed that many of them were Jiang’s clique, who made their way up in the CCP’s political circle by actively following Jiang’s eradication policy against Falun Gong.
While Xi wouldn’t publicly hold the officials accountable for their participation in the persecution of Falun Gong, as this could risk uprooting the CCP’s fundamental governance in China, his purging of these “corrupt” officials was in fact serving justice for Falun Gong to some extent.
According to information collected by Minghui, 68 PLAC officials, including the top ones in Henan and Heilongjiang, were reportedly running into bad endings in 2021, including being sentenced, jumping/falling out of buildings, being arrested and under investigation, or having family members put into prison. Almost all of them have personally organized, directed, or participated in persecuting Falun Gong practitioners.
What Happens in the International Community?
Many CCP officials used to think that western countries were their safe havens should they fall victim to the political struggles inside China. As a result, many of them transferred their “savings” and moved their family members to those countries. Some also obtained foreign citizenship themselves.
But as the old saying goes, “What goes around comes around.” With more and more human rights abuses exposed worldwide, the international community also started to hold the perpetrators accountable.
On December 10, 2020, the U.S. State Department identified Huang Yuanxiong, chief of the Wucun Police Station, Xiamen Public Security Bureau, Fujian Province, for sanction. This was for his involvement in “severe violations of religious freedom of Falun Gong practitioners, namely his involvement in the detention and interrogation of Falun Gong practitioners for practicing their beliefs.”
On May 12, 2021, the U.S. government sanctioned Yu Hui, former director of the Chengdu City 610 Office of Sichuan Province.
Once sanctioned, the officials’ assets in the U.S. would be frozen and they and their family members would be barred from entering the U.S. again.
Around December 10, 2021, International Human Rights Day, Falun Gong practitioners in 36 democratic countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada, delivered a list of perpetrators to their respective governments, seeking sanctions of these perpetrators under the Magnitsky law.
Jeppe Kofod, Denmark Minister of Foreign Affairs, said that the Danish government was very concerned about the fact that Falun Gong practitioners in China have been arrested and abused by the CCP. He said that the Danish government will work with other countries on critical dialogues with the CCP regarding improving human rights conditions of religious and minority groups in China, including Falun Dafa practitioners.
Currently, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the European Union (27 countries) have passed the Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act. The Act authorizes the government to sanction perpetrators of human rights violations, corrupt officials, and malicious cyber-actors by freezing the assets of the relevant officials, institutions, or groups in the respective countries and banning the relevant persons from entering the respective countries.
In addition, Western countries such as the Five Eyes alliance shared information on human rights persecutors among themselves. The United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom already work closely together in this area.
Related Reports:
When Healthy Teachers are Given Psychiatric Treatment Against Their Will
Danish Government Responds to Human Rights Violation Against Falun Dafa Practitioners in China
Forced Abortion and Miscarriage Under the Chinese Communist Party
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Category: News Commentary
