(Minghui.org) Continued from Part 1
China's labor camp system, which had held hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners, appeared to have been shut down in 2013, but the major force driving the persecution of Falun Gong, the 610 Office, was not.
Many incidences of kidnapping, extortion, imprisonment, and torture driven by 610 Offices all over China continue to be reported. They continue to use a longstanding practice of turning practitioners' families, including children, against them and using them as yet another tool to persecute practitioners.
Part 1 is an overview of how brainwashing centers are now taking over where the labor camps left off. Part 2 focuses on the terrible impact of the 610 Office, which acts through and overrides local community leaders, brainwashing centers, educational systems, and other government agencies, in 2013.
Instigating Hatred of Practitioners' Children
The 610 Office is known for propaganda and instigating hatred of Falun Gong, and young children are often their targets.
On October 21, many students and their parents from several schools in Guiyang City, Guizhou Province, received a letter slandering Falun Gong and asking them to report on Falun Gong practitioners to the local law enforcement. The letter from Guihusan District School showed that the provincial 610 Office drafted the letter and sent it to students all over the province.
A similar letter was sent in October 2013 to 120,000 students by 610 Offices in Zhengzhou, Henan Province. In Xuanhan, Sichuan Province, and Weifang City, Shandong Province, parents and students were asked to sign a pledge against Falun Gong in similar letters.
Coercing Neighbors and Colleagues to Assist in the Persecution
610 Office members often coerce neighbors and colleagues into becoming accomplices in persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. Some examples follow:
- In Xupu County, Hunan Province, the local 610 Office had tried to take Ms. Yang Lanying, an elementary school teacher, to the brainwashing center, but failed. On July 16, the school principal asked Ms. Yang to come in and discuss her salary and bonus. Six 610 officers were waiting for her. She was taken to a brainwashing center in Huaihua City and held for a month.
- On November 16, 2013, 610 Office agents and policemen in Huadian City, Jilin Province, knocked on Ms. Wang Guilan’s door at 4 a.m. and asked her to go to the police station. Ms. Wang, 70, refused to open the door. The police then asked a young woman to knock on the door, pretending to be one of the neighbors in charge of community affairs. Ms. Wang opened the door, and the police rushed in.
They dragged her into the car and took her to the brainwashing center in Jilin City. When she asked the young woman why she tricked her, the woman said, “I had no choice. The 610 Office agents forced me. They surrounded your house. Where could you have run to anyway?”
Both of Ms. Wang’s sons are in jail because of their belief in Falun Gong. She lost her job after being released from the brainwashing center.
Turning Family Members against Practitioners
The 610 Offices routinely extend the persecution to practitioners' family members and use them to apply pressure on the practitioners.
- In December, two practitioners in Qian’an City, Hebei Province, Ms. Wen Cuijuan and Wang Xiujuan, were detained in a local brainwashing center by the 610 Office. Ms. Wen’s family members tried to visit her there, but were turned away twice. The second time, the 610 Office agents cursed at her family and tried to assault them.
The 610 Office didn’t allow Ms. Wen’s family to send her any winter clothes. One of the officers said, “As long as I am here, none of you can see her. Even if she dies here, it's not my problem.”
- On August 14, 2013, Judong Forced Labor Camp in Jiangsu Province was closed. Mr. Dou Wenqiang, a Falun Gong practitioner, was taken to a brainwashing center on the day that he was released. In the brainwashing center, he refused to sign the guarantee statement to renounce Falun Gong.
After a number of failures to force Mr. Dou to give up Falun Gong, three 610 Office agents, Zhang, Chen, and Wei, found his parents and forced them to come to the brainwashing center.
Mr. Dou’s mother and sister agreed to help the 610 Office after being threatened and deceived. Mr. Dou’s mother beat him to try to get him to give up Falun Gong. Later, she wrote a guarantee statemtnt and forged his signature. The 610 Office then announced to the public that Mr. Dou had given up Falun Gong.
- In July, 610 Office agents in Huaihua, Hunan Province, took Ms. Yu Fen to a brainwashing center. They forced her mother-in-law to monitor her, make her watch videos slandering Falun Gong, and try to make her sign a guarantee statement renouncing her belief in Falun Gong.
Overriding Other Agencies to Carry out the Persecution
The 610 Office is empowered to override law enforcement agencies in implementing the persecution. Some examples:
- He Weijin, head of the local 610 Office in the Longquan District, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, edited booklets and flyers attacking Falun Gong. He ordered the district education system to require all elementary and high school students to sign a letter against Falun Gong. He also went to prisons and labor camps, encouraging the guards there to torture Falun Gong practitioners.
In a lecture that he gave to a group of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members in 2013, he said explicitly that Falun Gong practitioners did not have the right to appeal, and encouraged violence against practitioners by the police. “It is OK even if you beat them to death,” he claimed.
- Chen Zhenggao, former head of the provincial 610 Office and current governor of Liaoning Province, supervises and make plans for the persecution of Falun Gong in his jurisdiction. He ordered the local government officials to register all the Falun Gong practitioners in Dandong City. Each practitioner is closely watched by thugs hired by the local authorities.
- In August, Guo, head of local 610 Office in Linfen City, Shanxi Province, went to Fenxi County and had the county government set up a brainwashing center targeting Falun Gong practitioners. To comply with this order, the local government officials paid people to register at the brainwashing center and pretend to give up their non-existent belief in Falun Gong.
- On July 18, 2013, the 610 Office in Beijing deployed police officers in five districts. They arrested 24 Falun Gong practitioners and put all of them in detention centers.
- In September, the provincial 610 Office in Gansu organized a conference for law enforcement officials to discuss plans to persecute Falun Gong. Deputy provincial governor and deputy head of the 610 Office Wang Xiyu hosted the conference. Another deputy head of the 610 Office, Ji Ping, asked the local 610 Office to develop documents for each practitioner, step up surveillance, and set up more brainwashing centers.
Planning and Coordinating Arrests
On October 17 and 18, head of the city 610 Office Bai Yan and other government officials in Jilin City, Jilin Province, planned a large-scale raid. Police from around the city arrested 34 Falun Gong practitioners, including minors. Zhu Yujun, a local restaurant owner and a practitioner; his wife; and their five-year-old daughter were arrested, as well as practitioners that worked at the restaurant.
Bai Yan first ordered extensive surveillance of practitioners to compile a list of targets, and then mobilized police all over the city to make arrests over a period of two days.
On May 25, 2013, 610 Office members from Sichuan Province and local police in Jingzhou County, Hunan Province, broke into Mr. Yang Xiaoping’s house in Huaihua City, Hunan. Without showing a warrant, they took Mr. Yang to a detention center in Fushun, Sichuan Province, almost 600 miles away. In October, he was sentenced to Wumaping Prison in Leshan, Sichuan. His family was not informed of either event.
On July 31, more than 20 local 610 Office agents in Chenxi County, Hunan Province, broke into Ms. Yao Aizhen’s apartment and arrested her, while she was babysitting her three-year-old granddaughter. The officers also took a computer, an MP4 player, Falun Gong books, and other valuables. They took Ms. Yao to the brainwashing center in Huaihua City. Her daughter, Yao Lingyan, was asked to come to the brainwashing center to try to pressure her into renouncing Falun Gong.
Interfering with the Legal Process
Ms. Mo Huiping, a practitioner in Wuzhong City, Ningxia, was arrested in February and tried twice. Her family hired a lawyer for both trials. The 610 Officers interfered with the trials. They took video footage of Ms. Mo’s family to intimidate them and arranged for almost 40 people to occupy all the seats in the courtroom when the trials were in session, so that her family could not enter. After the first trial, the 610 Office agents and local police called her family and threatened them.
Ms. Mo was sentenced to four years of imprisonment. When her family asked judge Du Weijun why he repeatedly stopped Mo’s lawyer from speaking at the trials, he indicated that he had no choice, because the verdicts were predetermined by the 610 Office.
Ms. Chen Kaiyu, a practitioner from Huaihua, Hunan Province, had a similar experience. In April 2013, she was sentenced to three years. She appealed in September. During the second trial, the local 610 Office in Huaihua City made sure that none of her family or friends were able to attend the trial. The court had a secret trial and rejected the appeal. Ms. Chen is now in the women's prison in Changsha, Hunan Province.
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