By He Yu, Minghui reporter

(Clearwisdom.net)

In the "Law Education Training Center" set up by the 610 Office of the Kuiwen District in Weifang City, Shandong Province, Falun Gong practitioner Zhang Liang was forcefully "reformed" after refusing to give up his belief in Falun Gong. Zhang Liang suffered the torture of "stewing the eagle" (sleep deprivation) for more than one month. He was forced to stand for 24 hours a day without any rest or sleep. When he became sleepy, a group of hatchet men brutally took turns to torture him. After one month, Liang Zhang was tortured to the point where he became incoherent, dizzy, and could not understand people's words. His legs were badly swollen. His skin became opaque, pale, and broke open easily. Finally, he became nearly unable to stand or walk. Countless times, he bumped into walls and fell down. The evildoers even forced his 80-year-old grandmother to kneel down and beg him to give up his belief.

In the Beijing Tuanhe Forced Labor Camp, in order to "reform" Chen Gang, the guards had not allowed him to close his eyes for 15 days. When he closed his eyes, they shocked his head, chest and other sensitive parts of his body with several high-voltage electric batons. His skin and flesh on the shocked areas were burned and felt like snake bites. His whole body appeared to have been burned and baked in fire. The guards instructed dozens of prisoners to brutally beat him. They bound his legs in the full-lotus position, and then tied his neck to his legs, forming the shape of a ball with his body. They then squeezed him under a bed. A few prisoners sat on the bed for a long time to squeeze his body, making him feel like his bones were being broken and he was suffocating. He was left almost paralyzed and could not walk for two weeks. Talking about this humiliating experience, Chen Gang, who now lives in Pennsylvania, said, "Reaching the physical and mental breaking point, I had to face the choice between death and surrender all the time. When facing death, a man always feels scared and painful. However, surrender means betrayal of one's humanity and faith. The humiliation and suffering from a stained soul are far beyond death itself. The feeling is so horrible."

A young female practitioner, Zhu Xia, from Chengdu City had suffered more than one year of illegal forced labor, and had gone through three continuous brainwashing sessions lasting 10 months. During that time, she was brutally treated with the same "stewing the eagle" and other tortures, including being injected with unknown drugs that destroyed her nervous system. On April 2, 2004 when she was released, she had been abused to the point of mental disorder. She cried, laughed, upset and insulted others twenty-four hours a day, and urinated and defecated everywhere. She always held her head with hands and yelled with fear, "Are you going to rape me?" (Refer to the related reports on Clearwisdom.net)

Zhu Xia before being persecuted

Zhu Xia after being persecuted

Mental torture and murder are vital parts of the persecution of Falun Gong. To achieve the purpose of "reform," the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime uses intricately planned mental and physical torture to persecute Falun Gong practitioners, crushing them physically and mentally. They force Falun Gong practitioners to betray their faith and conscience.

The persecution of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance" murders human kindness and conscience. Human conscience and compassion are suffering from this persecution. With the excuse of "not participating in politics," people in China choose to ignore the murder; intentionally or unintentionally, they become tools of persecution. All Chinese people have been dragged into this destructive spiritual catastrophe.

In the persecution of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance," under the name of the state and politics, the CCP drove the entire government machinery to execute mass brainwashing, and used overwhelming lies and hate propaganda to manipulate public opinion. The widespread persecution implicated not only practitioners, but also countless family members and others accused of being "tied to" Falun Gong. Government officials and police were ranked and awarded based on their "achievements" in the persecution. By instigating hatred, stirring up conflict, and intimidation, the CCP forced most people to agree with or participate in the persecution.

In order to "ruin Falun Gong practitioners' reputations," the CCP media broadcast all kinds of lies and propaganda defaming Falun Gong, to turn public opinion against it.

Public opinion is influenced from many different angles. The CCP made a film entitled "The Story of Li Hongzhi" to defame Falun Gong's founder. The film alleges mind control. For those who admire science, the CCP claims that Falun Gong is superstition. Fans of modern medicine are told that Falun Gong forbids people to see a doctor and resulted in 1400 deaths. It claims that Falun Gong is "getting political," words which in China, are used as a weapon to brutally repress any group that the CCP wants to silence. For the patriotic, it claims that Falun Gong is a tool of anti-China forces. It claims that Falun Gong practitioners are not following the principle of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance and that it leads people to become murderers.

Many people do not believe the government can make such lies. Then it makes the lies more and more overwhelming, from self-mutilation, self-immolation, and suicide, to killing family members and killing others, from killing one to killing groups, until you are totally lost in the lies and believe the CCP's lies are true.

All these lies are used as mental torture instruments for mass brainwashing. The lies are endlessly repeated through television, radio, newspaper and magazines, nationwide. The public become victims of brainwashing, and quite a few of them help to spread the lies and escalate the persecution. Some even participate in the persecution themselves. With tight control of news and public opinion, the entire nation of China has become a mental prison full of lies.

Falun Gong practitioners are brainwashed in forced labor camps, detention centers, prisons, mental hospitals, drug-rehabilitation centers, and brainwashing centers all over China.

According to reports by WOIPFG (World Organization to Investigate the persecution of Falun Gong), brainwashing centers are spread all over China, from the province and city levels to residential committees at the village and town levels, from government organizations and universities to businesses and services. They are countless. There are up to 13 brainwashing centers at the city and county levels just in the Weifang City area of Shandong Province. In Shandong Province, there are more than 70 brainwashing centers in the 17 cities at the local city level, including Jinan, Weifang, and Zibo, etc.

According to WOIPFG, brainwashing centers do not follow legal procedures, do not register any information, are not confirmed by any legal regulations or official documents, are not subject to monitoring by any institutions, and possess the rights to kidnap and detain anyone. Falun Gong practitioners are often forced to pay so-called "training fees" of more than ten thousand yuan. These places are cunningly labeled "law education centers/schools/classes," "education reform centers," and "care centers," etc.

Jiang's regime extended their black claws to the families of Falun Gong practitioners. They "reformed" Falun Gong practitioners' family members into prison guards, and "reformed" happy families into "family prisons." In Xiaoluo Village of Chongyang Town, Chongzhou City in Sichuan Province, two Falun Gong practitioners died in "family prisons" - 73-year old Fang Guiming and 63-year old Wang Xiuyun.

Jiang's regime set up "brainwashing centers" and "family prisons," which enlarge the places and ranges of persecution to the maximum extent. It caused the cruel persecution against Falun Gong practitioners to exist everywhere.

On June 10, 1999, under direct orders from Jiang, the CCP Central Committee established an "Office for Dealing with the Falun Gong Issue," of which Li Lanqing and Luo Gan, etc. are in charge. It set up a system of subsidiary 610 Offices at all levels of the CCP regime all the way to the lowest level, which focus on planning and executing the persecution of Falun Gong. The function of the 610 Offices is "to instruct and adjust all the actions of public security organizations, procuratorial organs, courts, judicatory branches and national security organizations." The power of the unit-level 610 Office can override that of the government organizations, public security organizations, procuratorial organs, and courts at the same level, and directly reports to the higher level 610 Office. The establishment of 610 Offices obviously violates the 36^th and 89^th regulation of the Constitution. The 610 Office of the central committee has been approved neither by the National People's Congress Conference (NPCC) nor by the State Council, and is a completely illegal organization. The order of "brainwash and reform" is from the highest level of the CCP, and treated as the most important "political task" to be passed top-down through the 610 Offices. All of the government and CCP organizations are forced to execute the orders.

A collection of documents and notices issued around July 20, 1999, identify the official start of persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. In the "CCP Central Committee's Notice of Forbidding CCP Members to Practice Falun Gong," it mentioned that "the reform task for CCP members, who practice Falun Dafa, must be accomplished" and clearly defined the reform standards are "to voluntarily separate from Falun Gong organizations, to mentally sever the relationship with Falun Dafa, and to expose and criticize Falun Gong."

On August 24, 1999, the Xinhua News Agency published a notice from the Office of CCP Central Committee and the State Council, which demands "to better accomplish the mission of reforming the majority of Falun Gong practitioners" and extends the persecution to all Falun Gong practitioners. These documents even emphasize that even for "those who practice Falun Gong only for the purpose of health and fitness," if they don't have the "correct opinion" and do not give up their faith, then they will not be treated as being "reformed." It shows that the persecution has been against all Falun Gong practitioners ever since the beginning.

A collection of the following issued documents demand all the offices and organizations "to seriously spy on and investigate Falun Gong practitioners and completely identify the un-reformed practitioners." They demanded that "for those un-reformed Falun Gong practitioners (though they only practice at home), there is no exception but to send them batch-by-batch to the law education centers [brainwashing facilities-ed.] for reform." The statement of "there is no exception" shows Jiang's regime's resolve to destroy Falun Gong practitioners who follow the principle of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance."

The documents also claimed that Falun Gong practitioners are "specially treated" because they violate the laws. However, there is no law that practicing Falun Gong is illegal. In fact, it is Jiang's regime that defies the Constitution, and systematically violates fundamental rights.

The protracted persecution against Falun Gong has become a political, economic, environmental and moral crisis. People are tired of the unreasonable persecution. In the press conference that was held on the morning of February 28, 2006, Ke Liangdong, director of the Legal and Law Bureau of the Department of Public Security and his partners falsely interpreted "The Law of Punishment of Public Safety in China." To broadcast his plan to escalate the persecution, he instructed Sino Net to publish his Q & A for reporters under the title of "Public Security Department: Practicing Falun Gong results in punishment or forced labor." It shows that the CCP continues to intimidate the entire society to fight against tens of millions of peaceful Falun Gong practitioners who follow the principle of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance."

The CCP organized many experts and scholars to research the factors that stop Falun Gong practitioners from being "reformed," and the weaknesses of Falun Gong practitioners who have been "reformed." They also performed some research on all the books of Falun Gong. They tried to apply the latest results in psychology. Borrowing from the experiences of labor camps and brainwashing centers, they attempted to find out how to destroy Falun Gong practitioners' bodies and develop a model system of "high-rate reform" of Falun Gong practitioners. Their methods include applying various evil theories and principles, family pressure, economic pressure, and cruel physical torture.

Forced labor camps have a "scientific research" relationship with the China Academy of Sciences (CAS). They forced practitioners to write detailed "thought reports." The Beijing Xin'an Women's Forced Labor Camp demanded that practitioners write about why they practice Falun Gong, about the changes that occurred after they practiced Falun Gong, and why they won't give up the practice. "Reformed" practitioners were asked to write about how they were "reformed." They had to record whose words, in which situation, the context or conditions that had the effect of reform, etc. Also, they asked the reformed practitioners to write about the differences in their opinions before and after being reformed, and the reasons for being reformed, etc.

The labor camps set up a "Monitoring and Education Section" responsible to collect these materials. They researched how to mentally and physically defeat Falun Gong practitioners. They passed all related materials to CAS, and then the top-level psychologists planned the persecution tactics. The hundred-page "special writings" were then distributed to the forced labor camps. The policemen in the "Monitoring and Education Section" read these books first, and then taught the other policemen who are directly involved in the "reform" and follow the so-called "optimized models" to persecute Falun Gong practitioners step by step.

(1) Intimidation and temptation: Find the weaknesses of a Falun Gong practitioner by means of false kindness. Launch an emotional attack, and intimidate to reform.

(2) Physical torture: After a period of time, if intimidation does not work, then the vicious people show their true faces. They put Falun Gong practitioners in high-pressure environments. Typically, they use "stewing the eagle" and other tortures, high-intensity labor for long periods of time, and terrible living conditions. They push Falun Gong practitioners to the breaking point, both physically and mentally.

(3) Mental barrage: Use various heretical theories and principles to confuse, and perform mental anesthesia and persecution.

(4) Physical isolation and psychological implication: Put Falun Gong practitioners into an isolated environment. Perform various vicious psychological implications. In the "desperate environment," force him to doubt if his behavior is normal and thus give up his faith.

These steps are always combined and repeated until the mentality is completed broken so as to be "reformed."

(5) Singing "The Same Song": Sing "The Same Song" with their captors. Announce the success of the brainwashing. The newly "transformed" assist in "reforming" other practitioners.

To improve the efficiency of "reform," some forced labor camps in Beijing and other places bypassed the first step and directly put Falun Gong practitioners into the high-pressure terror environment and use the "tension first, relax later" model.

This is an intricately planned, systematic mental persecution. The methods of persecution are various combinations of soft and hard ones. The forced labor camps, detention centers, prisons, and brainwashing centers widely share experiences and tactics to develop new methods of persecution.

The target of a "100% transformation rate" forces practitioners to make a choice between giving up their beliefs and sustaining endless, cruel physical and mental persecution. For the firm faith-holder, giving up faith means the death of spirit, while enduring endless, cruel persecution may eventually mean death of the body. From any perspective, Jiang's regime is intentionally attempting to destroy all Falun Gong practitioners.

(To be continued)

Posting date: 5/10/2006
Original article date: 5/9/2006
Category: Eyewitness Accounts
Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/3/8/122251.html

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