[7.20 Commentary] The Key Role of the CCP’s PLAC and 610 Office in the Persecution of Falun Gong (Part 2)

(Minghui.org) (Continued from Part 1)

2. The 610 Office Is Illegal

The 610 Office is a functional department tasked with persecuting Falun Gong. On matters related to the suppression of Falun Gong, it holds power over regular government agencies or law enforcement, procuratorial, court, and judicial agencies. The establishment of the 610 Office itself has bypassed the Chinese Constitution and regular legal procedures.

As a highly confidential unit, the 610 Office is an illegal, secret agency, which has violated Article 36 and Article 89 of the Chinese Constitution. Thus the 610 Office is illegal even by current Chinese laws. Furthermore, the establishment of this agency was not approved by the National People’s Congress, the highest authority and the law-making body in China.

Although established as a ministry-level unit, the Central 610 Office is shrouded in secrecy, with many details unknown to the outside world. Over the years, it has undergone various reorganizations and renaming, but its supreme power remains. In addition to coordinating the nationwide persecution against Falun Gong, its jurisdiction has expanded to churches, other religious groups, and qigong organizations that do not submit themselves to ideological control by the CCP.

Due to its notoriety, the 610 Office has changed its name to the “Central Leading Group on Preventing and Dealing with Heretical Religions.” But its function remains the same and its internal name has never changed.

The Illegal 610 Office Exists at All Levels Nationwide

Over the years, the 610 Office has grown into a gigantic privileged network from top to bottom, similar to the Nazi Gestapo system. Despite its secrecy and the CCP’s censorship, we have found from public information that the illegal 610 Office system exists at all levels throughout China. This shows the persecution is massive, deep, and systematic.

3. The 610 Office Is the Executor of the Persecution

The 610 Office has taken the lead in coordinating and implementing all aspects of the CCP’s persecution policy. Minghui has covered this subject extensively. We will cover several areas with a few brief examples.

Reckless Arrest and Illegal Detention

Through the 610 Office, Jiang Zemin repeatedly issued secret orders against Falun Gong practitioners. These include “eliminating them physically,” “killing them is counted as suicide,” “sending them to cremation directly without checking their identity,” and others. Under the 610 Office’s instruction, police across China have harassed, followed, fined, arrested, and detained practitioners at both detention centers and prisons while ransacking their homes.

One of the 610 Office’s major tactics in suppressing practitioners is establishing brainwashing centers to “transform” practitioners (force them to renounce their faith, often through torture). Functioning as a black jail created by the PLAC and the 610 Office, these brainwashing centers are scattered all over China. To deceive outsiders, these centers are called “legal education schools” or “schools of education and transformation.” The 610 Office decides which practitioners to arrest, and the police carries out the arrests.

For example, the Suining City PLAC and 610 Office in Sichuan Province opened a brainwashing center in Longping Town in 2000 named the “School of Advocating Science.” Many practitioners were kept there, including pregnant women such Ms. Tang Xiaoming from the Jinmei community. Officials also hired ruffians to abuse practitioners. Ms. Kuang Yuliang, a practitioner in her 50s, was hung up on a window frame in the brainwashing center every day with only the tips of her toes touching the floor. This lasted five months, and she was emaciated. Because of torture and forced drugging, Ms. Kuang died on June 14, 2005.

Similarly, the Langfang Brainwashing Center was established by the Hebei Province 610 Office and the Langfang 610 Office in 1999. Although referred to as the “Langfang Legal Education Center,” it does not have any instructors or teaching facilities. Though it had no law enforcement power, it operated above police, procuratorial, court, and judicial agencies. It was not a medical facility, yet its staff members could forcibly inject or force-feed unknown drugs to practitioners at will. In addition, officials could arrest people at any time and at any place, and subject them to torture in attempts to force them to give up their belief.

According to insider information, thousands of practitioners have been detained in Langfang Brainwashing Center since 2000. Based on available information, at least 13 practitioners had died due to torture, 12 developed mental disorders, and 18 were disabled or sickened.

Inciting Hatred with Defamation

The CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong is based on lies, and the 610 Office has produced one lie after another to slander Falun Gong, mislead officials and the public, and justify the suppression. These lies cause great harm, as can be seen in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

Before the Olympics, top CCP leaders gave secret orders to escalate the persecution. As a result, the Central 610 Office issued a secret document in April 2008 titled, “Key Points of a Speech on Preventing ‘Falun Gong’ from Harassing Beijing Olympics.” This document exhausted all efforts to slander Falun Gong, and without any basis, it even connected Falun Gong with so-called “anti-China forces.”

This document was distributed among all levels of government, including local neighborhood committees and schools. It used common defamation techniques to escalate the persecution nationwide. Many Falun Gong practitioners were soon arrested across China, and more Chinese people were led to hate Falun Gong.

(To be continued)