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Labor Camp Sentences Converted to Prison Terms - A Change in the Manner of Persecution, Not a Change in Party Nature

April 12, 2013 |   By Minghui reporter Qiuzhen

(Minghui.org) It has been four months since Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang took over the top positions in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Yet there has been no relaxation in the persecution of Falun Gong. In fact, it has escalated instead. Countless facts attest to what Master Li Hongzhi cautioned Falun Gong students in "Stay Clearheaded":

 

"Don’t harbor any false hopes about the evil CCP. This sinister demon came here to destroy mankind."
[...]
"As long as the wicked Party still exists, its nature will never change."

Reports have been received that in March 2013 alone, over 100 Falun Gong practitioners were unjustly arrested in a few places including Shenyang and Harbin.

 

When families went to the Shenyang Detention Center demanding release, they were shown pictures of those held there. The practitioners appeared disfigured in the photographs – a result of the vicious beatings and brutal torture they endured. Even their families could not recognize them.

 

In early April, Mr. Wang Quanzhang, the defense attorney representing a Falun Gong practitioner, was detained during a court hearing by a Jingjiang City Court judge in Jiangsu Province.

 

On March 29, a concerned individual went to the Liaoning Province Women's Prison to visit a Falun Gong practitioner's family member who was illegally held there. The person spotted over 20 female Falun Gong practitioners there who had been transferred from out of town. Each was carrying a large bag. The hair of many had turned gray. Soldiers carrying automatic weapons were lined up on both sides of the practitioners, as if facing fierce enemies.

 

Witnessing this scene, this concerned individual lamented, "The Communist regime lied to soldiers and Chinese people. Innocent soldiers were ordered to battlefields in Korea and Vietnam where they were badly beaten. Many lost their lives. Yet, when dealing with harmless, kindhearted Falun Gong practitioners who do not shout or fight back when cursed or beaten, they put on such an air of arrogance and aggressiveness. How sad, how tragic, and how absurd all this really is!"

 

This group of practitioners appeared to the witness to have been transferred from out of town labor camps – transferred from labor camps to prison. Illegal forced labor terms are thus turned into illegal imprisonment. The witness hopes the people of the world will investigate and stand up to any injustices.

 

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Looking back, when the persecution began in 1999, propaganda was all over the state controlled media, including television, broadcasting, and newspapers, smearing and attacking Falun Gong. Soon the persecution encountered dissent and resistance both inside and outside China, so something had to change.

 

Jiang Zemin, then CCP chief, and other CCP top officials Luo Gan, Liu Jing, and Zhou Yongkang, among others, plotted the Tiananmen "Self Immolation." They attempted to use this massive propaganda stunt to divert attention from the regime's wrongdoing, and to demonize Falun Gong instead.

 

In the years that followed, the CCP resorted to numerous cover-ups, window-dressing, and corrupt practices, yet its policy and practice of persecution have been maintained at all times.

 

A Minghui commentator pointed out, "The CCP is simply a sinister demon. One can harbor no false hopes on it. It has tentatively announced the abolishment of the forced labor system. This serves its purpose of window-dressing itself, admitting some minor wrongs while dodging resposibility for monumental crimes, diverting public attention, and misleading and lulling the world's people into inaction."

 

The primary role of the CCP labor camps is to serve as a facility for persecuting Falun Gong. This is backed up by the large amounts of data archived on the Minghui website.

 

Labor camps, brainwashing centers, prisons, courts, police, state security agencies, the military, and the 610 Office system have all colluded to act as coordinated parts of a larger machine. The CCP fears that the public will come to understand China's biggest human rights issue and social problem – the persecution of over 100 million Falun Gong practitioners.

 

The Party wants to restrict the attention placed labor camps and the brutal torture done there. It fears its own disintegration, and tries to postpone its certain sorry fate. It tries to keep alive the illusion among people, especially those in the west, that it has the prospect and capability to carry out a "peaceful transition." It wants to waste people's time in expecting the dissolution of the forced labor system.

 

Yet even when the CCP has closed its forced labor camps, the entire remaining persecution apparatus of brainwashing centers, prisons, courts, police, state security agencies, the military, and the 610 Office system will continue to operate as usual.

 

Transfering Falun Gong practitioners who are illegally held in labor camps to prisons, even arbitrarily extending their terms, is not the result that people who truly uphold justice and moral values would expect to see.

 

Falun Gong practitioners outside China have appealed to the public that they should not harbor illusions about the CCP and face reality, and follow their kind thoughts and conscience. Only then can we stop the evil, stop this persecution of over 100 million Falun Gong practitioners, and bring an end to CCP cheating and poisoning of the world's people.