(Minghui.org) The Yangquan City Brainwashing Center in Shanxi Province is an extralegal establishment built in October 2021 for the purpose of torturing the practitioners of Falun Dafa and forcing them to renounce their faith.

The center does not exist in the official system. Because of its shady nature and the illicit crimes taking place inside, it has moved from place to place over the years: from the fifth floor of a hotel near Yangquan City Third People’s Hospital to the third floor of another hotel near Beishan Park, to its current location on the third floor of Zhixing Hotel in Houdigou Community.

Those who work in the brainwashing center referred to it as a “learning center” or a “care center.” It is run mainly by the city’s Political and Legal Affairs Committee and the 610 Office, as well as other municipal justice and administrative offices.

Partial List of the Practitioners Who Have Been Tortured in the Center

Over the years, the authorities in the brainwashing center have arrested many practitioners. Besides brainwashing, other means used to make the practitioners give up the practice include verbal abuse, threats, sleep deprivation, denial of family visits, and extortion.

Some practitioners gave up their faith after the torture and became collaborators to help the authorities “transform” other practitioners. These collaborators misinterpreted the teachings of Falun Dafa and used them to deceive the practitioners in physical and emotional distress. Many practitioners were deceived or coerced into renouncing their faith. The following is a partial list of the practitioners who have been detained in the brainwashing center.

-Ms. Zhang Jianglian was arrested at home on November 24, 2021. The police and 610 Office agents brought her straight to the brainwashing center without due process.

-Ms. Cheng Guifang was taken to the brainwashing center on June 29, 2022.

-Ms. Zhang Qiaorun was arrested at home on July 20, 2022, and taken straight to the brainwashing center.

-Ms. Han Linghua was arrested on August 20, 2022, and also taken to the brainwashing center.

-Ms. Zhang Ruiping was taken to the brainwashing center on April 19, 2023, and is still there.

-Mr. Geng Jianxin and Ms. Chen Guimei were once tortured in the brainwashing center. 

-Ms. Zhu Ruiying and Ms. Yang Guihua were forced to renounce their faith.

Collaborator Dedicated to “Transforming” Practitioners

Qiao Jinhua is a former practitioner who was sentenced to three years in prison for practicing Falun Dafa in May 2015. She renounced her faith in the prison and began to actively assist the guards to “transform” other practitioners. After she was released, she traveled from place to place to brainwash practitioners in nearby cities.

Qiao worked with the police and the 610 Office in Pingding County in August 2020 and coerced nine practitioners to write and sign statements to renounce their faith. The practitioners were Ms. Qiao Guiying, Mr. Yin Zhihong, Ms. Kang Wenmei, Ms. Shi Zong’e, Ms. Chen Lingling, Ms. Mu Xindi, Ms. Wang Mingzhu, Ms. Pei Xiuyun, and Ms. Zhang Qiaorun.

Qiao also went to Ms. Zhang Jianglian’s home many times in 2020 and tried to coerce her to give up the practice.

When the authorities set up a brainwashing center in the Yaodu District in Linfen City on March 15, 2021, they invited Qiao to help “transform” the incarcerated practitioners. Qiao told the practitioners there that she once went to Huozhou City to “transform” Ms. Xu Ling because she could earn 10,000 yuan for each practitioner she “transformed.” The police reimbursed her transportation costs and treated her courteously. Qiao also said that the brainwashing center spent up to 40,000 yuan to “transform” a practitioner, which included the reward for the collaborator and his/her expenses at a hotel.

In October 2021, Qiao helped the authorities put together the Yangquan City Brainwashing Center, which is still actively persecuting local practitioners.

More on Extralegal Brainwashing Centers

Former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin set up the 610 Office as an extralegal agency to persecute Falun Dafa practitioners. The brainwashing centers that the 610 Office set up therefore had no actual legal authority, so the “arrests” they make are illegal. Their crimes, which are directed at Falun Dafa practitioners, violate Article 37 of China’s Constitution, which states: “The personal freedom of citizens of the People’s Republic of China shall not be violated. No citizen shall be arrested unless with the approval or by the decision of a people’s procuratorate or by the decision of a people’s court, and arrests must be made by a public security organ. Unlawful detention, or the unlawful deprivation or restriction of a citizen’s personal freedom by other means, is prohibited; the unlawful search of a citizen’s body is prohibited.”

The Hubei Province Brainwashing Center is another example of the 610 Office’s abuse of the law. Since the persecution started in 1999, the armed guards and the collaborators at this location have worked with practitioners’ supervisors to arrest the local practitioners and force them to give up their faith through incarceration, brainwashing, and torture, including beatings, denial of family visits, sleep deprivation, and verbal assaults.

Information on the perpetrators in Yangquan City:

Qiao Jinhua: +86-17603436467Zhixing Hotel: +86-18035345111Chief police of Nanshanlu Police Station in Yangquan City: +86-0353-2192597Nanshanlu Police Station: +86-15536666845