Two Hubei Residents Taken to Brainwashing Center After 15-day Detention

(Minghui.org) Two Wuhan City, Hubei Province residents were transferred to a local brainwashing center at the end of their 15-day administrative detention. Their families are now kept in the dark of their whereabouts.

Ms. Luo Yuanying and Ms. Huang Hongwei were arrested on February 22, 2021, after being reported for distributing informational materials about Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999. The police didn’t inform their families of the arrests and it took them several days to find out they were given 15-day detention at the Erzhigou No.1 Administrative Lockup in Dongxihu District.

The two practitioners’ families went to the lockup to verify that their loved ones were indeed held there. The staff members refused to look up the information for them, using the pandemic as an excuse.

On March 10, when the 15-day detention expired, the two practitioners’ families went to the lockup early in the morning to take them home. At around 9 a.m., officers from the Tangjiajie Police Station who arrested the practitioners also arrived.

The practitioners’ families told the police that they were determined to take the practitioners home. One officer responded that the practitioners were just given seven months at a brainwashing center.

Despite the two families’ strong protest and the police’s lack of proper legal documents for the seven-month brainwashing center detention, the police still took the practitioners away.

The two families went to Tangjiajie Police Station, trying to find out which brainwashing center their loved one would be sent to. The police kept them waiting there until 11: 30 p.m. and still didn’t provide any information.

Ms. Luo’s Past Persecution

Ms. Luo used to work as a cashier for the Qiaokou District Administration for Industry and Commerce. She took up Falun Gong in 1996.

After the communist regime ordered the persecution in July 1999, Ms. Luo went to Beijing three times to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong. For upholding her faith, she was also removed from her position at work and transferred to a residential property management center. She was later forced into early retirement and not allowed to go back to work.

Ms. Luo was arrested again in October 2000 for making Falun Gong banners. At the Wuhan City Women’s Detention Center, she was beaten, force-fed, and hung up for three days with her feet barely touching the ground. After the guards let her down, they kept her hands cuffed for two weeks. She had to rely on a fellow practitioner, who fed her and helped her relieve herself. When the guards finally removed the handcuffs, her arms were swollen, numb, and bruised. All of the clothes, daily necessities, and cash her family sent her were confiscated by the guards.

Ms. Luo was later given two years of forced labor. The labor camp guards once held her in solitary confinement for four months. They also beat her, force-fed her, verbally abused her, and subjected her to brainwashing.

When her term expired in October 2002, she was transferred to the Danshuichi Brainwashing Center for not renouncing Falun Gong, where she was subjected to further torture, including beating, force-feeding, and hanging up. She was once forced to stand facing the wall for six days without sleep, causing her legs to be severely swollen.

At the end of 2002, the authorities took Ms. Luo to the Tangxunhu Brainwashing Center. A group of guards beat her, tied her hands and feet together, pushed her face against the ground, and then put a chair on her back to prevent her from moving.

At one point, the guards held her on the ground and ordered her to kneel down. When she refused to comply, they slapped her in the face for half an hour. At another time, the guards held her on the table, with one sitting on her neck, in an attempt to force her to sign the statement to renounce her faith. The torture caused injuries in her ribs and pain all over her body.

Other than Ms. Luo, Ms. Huang has also served a term at the Hewan Forced Labor Camp, but the details of her persecution are unclear at the time of writing.