Epoch Times: Report Details Degree of Brainwashing in China (Photo)
Zhou Yang
The Epoch Times Oct 31, 2004 The Chinese Communist Party has been carrying out a huge brainwashing
movement targeting Falun Gong practitioners. The World Organization to
Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) released an investigative
report on October 9 that revealed in detail the inside story of the brainwashing
facilities all over China, as well as how Falun Gong practitioners have been
abused in brainwashing classes in an attempt to force them to renounce their
practice. According to WOIPFG, establishing large-scale brainwashing classes is
actually extending the unlawful labor re-education, or laogai, practices
outside of labor camps. This significantly broadens the scope and distribution
of the persecution and spreads the suppression of Falun Gong throughout China. A group of experts from the U.N. Human Rights Committee finished a 12-day
visit to China at the end of September 2004. They issued a statement severely
criticizing the lack of Chinese legislation to guarantee the basic human rights
set by the World Declaration of Human Rights. They also criticized the lack of
judicial control over the so-called labor re-education program in China. Numerous Brainwashing Classes in China WOIPFG reported that numerous brainwashing classes targeting Falun Gong
practitioners have been established all over the country, from provinces and
cities to villages and township committees, from police departments and
organizations to universities and enterprises. The amount of brainwashing
facilities is far greater than the number of jails, labor camps and mental
hospitals. Some provinces, such as the Northeastern provinces of Hubei,
Guangdong, Heibei and Shandong, have the largest-scale brainwashing centers. These centers are often called Law Education Centers, Law Education Classes,
Law Education Schools, Education and Transformation Centers or Love and Care
Centers, among other names. Extension of Unlawful Labor Re-education Program In the 1960s, the CCP started to comprehensively import the labor
re-education program invented by former Soviet Union dictator Stalin to suppress
dissent. At the beginning of the 1980s, China invested huge amounts of money to
build labor camps for the punishment of minor offenders whose offenses were not
severe enough for a criminal penalty. In the early years, labor camps and mental
hospitals were the main institutions where the CCP carried out persecution and
brainwashing of dissidents. When a person is selected for the labor re-education program, a prosecutor is
not involved and a trial is not required. It takes the local police station only
a few minutes to approve a labor re-education case. This system is regarded as
an unconstitutional and illegal system, which systematically violates human
rights on a large scale. Recently, many non-governmental groups have advocated
abolishing this system. Countless Falun Gong practitioners arrested after the persecution started in
1999 were sent to labor camps, mental hospitals, detention centers, drug
rehabilitation centers and jails. Before the persecution, the official internal statistics of the Public
Security System in China showed that there were about 100 million people
practicing Falun Gong in China. Since authorities wanted to arrest so many
practitioners, the above facilities were inadequate. The Bureau of
Reeducation-Through-Labor in Beijing City began experiments with using
centralized and closed training classes for legal system education in 2001.
These classes were designed for brainwashing, but initially provided more space
for detaining Falun Gong practitioners who couldn't be accommodated in the
forced labor camps. All other areas in China followed the lead of Beijing and created
brainwashing classes. Brainwashing classes became another place to keep
practitioners in long-term detention, in addition to detention centers and
houses of detention. The brainwashing classes have also adopted many methods used by the
re-education through labor system. WOIPFG says that no legal procedures or
registration is required to open a brainwashing center and there is no official
document or law that specifies the nature, authority or administration of
brainwashing classes; they have no organizing regulations or supervision, yet
they can detain anyone without needing a legal document; staff members at the
brainwashing classes are not law enforcement officers, yet they have more power
than law enforcement officers; they can torture practitioners to death without
legal consequences; and Falun Gong practitioners can be abducted without any
legal procedure, forced into brainwashing classes and required to pay high-cost
"education" fees, usually more than 10,000 yuan (US$1,208). A China expert, who requested anonymity, compared brainwashing classes to
places such as labor camps and mental hospitals. They are another tool for
oppression and are established to circumvent the law with special power. They
are unique high-efficiency, low-cost "thought correcting"
institutions. They bypass the required judiciary procedures of collecting
criminal evidence, filing, hearing, defending, sentencing, appeals process, and
thus they silence voices of protest. "Soft Brainwashing" The latest WOIPFG report says that the transformation methods used by
brainwashing classes are very diverse. People being brainwashed are often forced
to make a choice between death of the spirit and death of the body. "Caring transformation" is a popular method used in detention
centers and brainwashing classes. The people in charge of brainwashing create a
false appearance of "caring" for the person they are transforming.
They find practitioners' weaknesses and shake practitioners' wills by attacking
focal points. The "caring re-education school" in Fushun City,
Liaoning Province, created a peaceful atmosphere by talking to practitioners for
up to a week to find out how every practitioner thinks. They could then adapt
their transformation work targeted at specific practitioners with different
types of thinking. The brainwashing classes also use the practitioners' family members and
friends to persuade, force and threaten. The practitioners are often faced with
emotional appeals from family members, threats of family members' deaths or
suicide as well as divorce. The family members are directed to blame
practitioners for getting them into trouble and not thinking of their families.
This tactic attacks practitioners' mental state and often forces transformation. One of the most insidious methods reported is to use practitioners who have
already been brainwashed and transformed in further transformation work, thereby
"killing two birds with one stone" and ensuring thorough
transformation. On the one hand, these people are used to transform others
because they had similar experiences. On the other hand, if these people later
come to their senses, they will have such deep regrets for what they have done,
that they will lose confidence in their own belief. Kong Fanyun, the chief of the Education Section in the Provincial Center for
Legal System Education in Hebei Province, said to those who had been
transformed, "Whenever we see you beating and calling others names, we will
consider you thoroughly transformed." "Forced Brainwashing" If Falun Gong practitioners were still not willing to give up their practice
after "Soft Brainwashing," "Forced Brainwashing" is then
used, which includes beating, threats, long periods of isolation and sleep
deprivation, according to WOIPFG. Falun Gong practitioners are normally jailed in an isolated environment, and
denied any contact with the outside world. They receive forced brainwashing 24
hours a day. According to the WOIPFG report, barbed wire was installed around
the buildings of the brainwashing center in the Wuchang area in Wuhan city.
There are two monitors in every room. The window and the door of each room are
barred with iron rods. The doors of the rooms are permanently locked and
sunlight never enters. At the brainwashing center in the Dongshang area in Guangzhou City, programs
slandering Falun Gong were broadcast at high volume every day. Falun Gong
practitioners were kept from sleep 24 hours a day, forced to look at video
programs slandering Falun Gong and forced to stay inside their rooms for months
or even years. The methods used at the brainwashing center in Hubei Province are deception,
blame, fear and beatings. Their brainwashing process is explained as follows:
Workers prevent Falun Gong practitioners from sleeping for several days in a row
and at the same time persuade them to give up their belief. Then several people surround a practitioner and try to scare him or her by
hitting the table and chair, and seriously threatening the practitioner in a
loud voice. After that, they tell practitioners that they will be sent to a
labor camp if they are not willing to give up their practice. Finally, several people will put their full weight on a practitioner and
force him or her to sign a statement promising to stop practicing Falun Gong. In
one incident, six people squashed a female Falun Gong practitioner until she
lost consciousness. These brainwashing methods are typical, WOIPFG reports.
About 90 percent of people who gave up their Falun Gong practice were converted
using these methods. Research by Professor J. Allan Hobson, a doctor of psychiatry from Harvard
University Medical School, demonstrated that if a person does not sleep for 5 to
10 days, the brain would start to lose normal functions. Their personality will
become unreasonable. In addition, they will hear imaginary voices and
hallucinate. One policeman at Xinan Labor Camp in Beijing reportedly said, "We use
the same methods that we use on spies. We want to make you collapse
mentally." WOIPFG disclosed the experience of Zhu Xia, a Falun Gong practitioner in
Cheng Du City. Zhu Xia was illegally sent into a labor camp for more than 18
months and attended three consecutive brainwashing centers -- Beixian, Ponzhou
and Xinjin. After detention, torture, brainwashing, beatings, and long-term
sleep deprivation, she was mentally disoriented when she was sent home on April
2, 2004. She suffered from serious delusions and heard imaginary voices. She
cried and laughed for no reason. She spread her feces and urine all over the
room, and would frequently scream out in extreme fear, "Are you going to
rape me?" WOIPFG pointed out that "Psychiatric disorder is the extreme consequence
of brainwashing. When a Falun Gong practitioner has been persecuted to the point
of mental disorder or even rendered unconscious, he/she could not continue in
their belief in Falun Gong and appeal for Falun Gong. This is the worst
intention of brainwashing by Jiang Zemin's gang. However, brainwashing is not
the end of the story. Large numbers of practitioners have lost their lives in
labor camps and brainwashing centers." In a WOIPFG statistical report, even under strict monitoring from the Chinese
government, from the beginning of 2001 to April 2004, there were nearly 146,000
Falun Gong practitioners who published a statement on Minghui.org, the Chinese
version of Clearwisdom.net, both Falun Gong websites, stating that they would
like to start their Falun Gong practice again. They claimed that they signed a
"promise to stop practicing" only because they were under extreme
pressure, and those announcements were made totally against their will. At the
same time, they disclosed the brutal brainwashing methods used by the
brainwashing centers in China. Source http://english.epochtimes.com/news/4-10-31/24091.html
Zhu Xia became severely mentally disordered
due to persecution and forced brainwashing.
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