Ms. Nie Fenghe from Shijiazhuang in Hebei Province Released from Brainwashing Center After Rescue Efforts

Name: Nie Fenghe (聂凤合)
Gender: Female
Age: 50s
Address: Da'anshe Village, Xinhua District, Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province
Occupation: Employee at Hebei Institute of Communication
Date of Most Recent Arrest: October 21, 2011
Most Recent Place of Detention: Hebei Province Brainwashing Center (河北省洗脑班)
City: Shijiazhuang
Province: Hebei
Persecution Suffered: Detention, brainwashing

(Clearwisdom.net) Several officers from Shangcheng Police Station and staff from Xishanzhuang Township government arrested Ms. Nie Fenghe at work at around 11:00 a.m. on October 21, 2011. They were in plain clothes and didn't present any documentation or arrest warrant. They took Ms. Nie to the “Hebei Province Law Education Center,” a brainwashing center specifically set up to persecute Falun Gong practitioners.

Ms. Nie's husband was recently discharged from the hospital, her daughter is disabled and her elderly mother is partially paralyzed. They all rely on Ms. Nie to look after them. When her family members made inquiries at the local government offices as to her whereabouts, they were initially informed that they had no idea where she was. However, when the family members found her bicycle, and after repeated inquiries, they finally learned that she was in the brainwashing center.

Before Ms. Nie started practicing Falun Gong in 1998, she used to suffer from heart problems and had tried a variety of medical treatments, but to no avail. However, her hearts problems soon disappeared after she began practicing. When the persecution started in 1999, local police harassed and threatened her and her family many times. On July 12, 2008, Li Shiming and two other officers from Shangcheng Police Station arrested her and took her to a brainwashing center.

Many practitioners have been persecuted at this brainwashing center over the past 12 years. It was disbanded several years ago after numerous people complained about the facility's presence in their area. But it resumed operations again in April 2010. Over the past year, ten practitioners have been detained there.

Fellow practitioners made concerted efforts to rescue Ms. Nie after she was taken to the brainwashing center. Some practitioners accompanied her family members to clarify the facts to local government officials and demand her release, while some sent righteous thoughts. Some practitioners collected the telephone numbers of those responsible for her persecution and passed them on to practitioners outside of China, so that they could phone them and try to get them to stop persecuting practitioners. Some wrote a public letter advising the perpetrators not to persecute practitioners, while others widely distributed the letter, along with other truth clarification materials. Due to practitioners' hard efforts in clarifying the facts, Ms. Nie was released in early December.

Those responsible for the persecution:

Liang Jianbin, head of Hebei Province Law Education Center: [phone], [phone]
Yuan Shuqian, officer in charge of the brainwashing center: [phone]