(Clearwisdom.net)

1. The Status of Office 610 Is Raised

"Office 610" is also known as "Supervising Office of the Falun Gong Issue." It was established on June 10, 1999 as one of the offices of the Central Party Committee. It is responsible for establishing and executing policies as directed by the Central Committee's "Supervising Team in Charge of the Falun Gong Issue," which is headed by Li Lanqing. Office 610 is headed by Luo Gan, a permanent member of the political-legal committee of the Central Committee. The office serves as the leadership group to carry out the persecution of Falun Gong as ordered by Jiang Zemin, and it is not bound by judicial law. Following the creation of Office 610 in the Central Committee, local branches in each province, city, autonomous region, and municipality were established in rapid succession.

From the central government down to the local governments, a tight, independent system of Office 610s has been formed. These offices wield power over party committees, local governments, and court systems at all levels in China. Since it was founded more than two years ago, it has conducted all sorts of illegal activities in persecuting Falun Dafa. Before the government banned Falun Gong on July 22, 1999, offices at the municipal level had already obtained lists of Falun Gong practitioners and other information. They arranged the surveillance and arrest of many local contact persons. After July 22, 1999, Office 610 gradually came out from behind the scenes to center stage.

Office 610 is not an ordinary legislative body. As the policy making and executive machine that Jiang Zemin and his group uses to persecute Falun Gong, it intervenes with everything related to Falun Gong. It directly manipulates and strictly controls the subordinate party and government organizations, public security, the courts, as well as national security, reform-through-labor and reeducation-through-labor departments in the juridical system--even news media and public opinion channels.

Recently, some practitioners from Northeast China in a brainwashing class overheard a member of the local Office 610. The Public Security Bureau has issued a document to raise the status and power of Office 610. Is this a new measure by Jiang Zemin and his group for making improvements in the golden time for human rights" in preparation for the Olympic Games?

2. Materials Clarifying the Truth of Falun Dafa Seen Everywhere in a Northeast Region of China

In a Northeast region of China, numerous Dafa practitioners have stepped forward to clarify the truth of Falun Gong. There are fliers everywhere in cities and towns saying, Falun Dafa is Good, Restore the Reputation of Falun Dafa, The Self-immolation in Tiananmen Square Was a Staged Performance. People are reading and passing around the newspaper Falun Dafa in China.

In the eleven townships around a city, posters that read "Falun Dafa is the Righteous Fa," "Restore the Reputation of Teacher," "Stop the Persecution of Falun Gong," "Warnings to people in the world" can be seen everywhere. For some time, the local officials could not get rid of them quickly. Some posters were even seen pasted on the police vehicles.

The righteous thoughts of Dafa practitioners are indestructible.

3. Officials in Zhuozhou City (Hebei province) Force Practitioners into a Brainwashing Base

Zhuozhou City is located about 40 miles south of Beijing, and there are about 5,000 Falun Dafa practitioners living there. Since July 22, 1999, the local Office 610 and the police department of the city have been praised many times for their brutal persecution of Dafa practitioners.

This spring, they built a brainwashing base near Nanma Village. Since then, the officials have been sending determined practitioners or those who distributed truth-clarifying Dafa materials to the base. They have inflicted many kinds of torture upon Dafa practitioners and forced them to watch brainwashing videotapes. The newly detained practitioners usually receive 100 lashings of a stick, and they are forced to verbally attack Falun Dafa and curse Teacher in front of a video camera. The practitioners who firmly resist or refuse to write pledges against Falun Dafa are sent to local detention centers and labor camps.

Before July 1, the local police station and Office 610 sent more than ten Dafa practitioners to the base. According to the police, they got orders from higher authorities to force the practitioners to change their minds. Some practitioners have been forced to leave home to escape persecution. However, some of them have been caught and sent back to the base. It is said that the base is being enlarged, and that the officials are planning to arrest Dafa practitioners from the Baoding region.

Recently, several Dafa practitioners were sentenced to Balizhuang Labor Camp and the local detention center in Zhuozhou City.

4. Practitioners in Qingyuan County Are Illegally Detained

Practitioners Xu Hongwei and Meng Li live in Xu Village (Dongliu Town, Qingyuan County, Hebei Province). The couple has been to Beijing five times to appeal. After they returned, policemen from the Dongliu Town Police Station beat them up and fined them 13,000 Yuan (Yuan, Chinese Dollar, the average monthly salary of an urban worker is about 500 Yuan ). They were detained there for four months. Because they went on a hunger strike with other practitioners to protest against the persecution, they were transferred to Qingyuan Detention Center, where they are still being detained now. Their elderly mother and two children have been left behind at home.

5. Shayang Labor Camp in Hubei Province Brutally Tortures Female Practitioners

Female Falun Dafa practitioners have suffered a great deal of torture at the hands of the guards in Group Nine of Shayang Labor Camp. Those who refuse to write letters giving up Falun Gong are shocked with electric batons and beaten. Practitioners are forced to perform heavy labor in the morning and undergo military training in the afternoon. Apart from physical torture, the guards have imposed mental torment by brainwashing them with slanderous material targeting Falun Dafa and Master Li.

6. As the Persecution Intensifies, Heizuizi Female Labor Camp in Changchun Hire More Guards

About one thousand Falun Dafa practitioners are being detained in Heizuizi Female Labor Camp in Changchun City, Jilin Province. To alleviate a shortage of guards, more than 30 policemen were transferred there from Siping and Heizuizi Female Prisons.

More than ten practitioners have been sentenced to jail for printing and spreading materials with true stories of Falun Gong.

7. Police in Chongli County Try in Vain to Stop Fa Rectification

Whenever an anniversary related to a Falun Dafa event is approaching, the police in Chongli County of Hebei Province mobilize all available manpower to set up roadblocks, trying to stop Falun Dafa practitioners from spreading the Fa.

This year, near the end of April, in the middle of May, and at the beginning of June, the police set up roadblocks again. Apart from checking the identification of all passengers, searching their bags, and asking them to register their names, the police also required them to curse Falun Dafa and Master Li. They hoped to discover and detain practitioners in this manner.

Even under such tight control, banners with words like Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance and Falun Dafa is Good were still seen all over the county. There were also many Falun Gong flyers in circulation, and some practitioners even went to Tiananmen to appeal for Falun Gong.

8. Officials in Chongqing City Heighten Persecution of Practitioners

Officials in the Chongqing city government have intensified the persecution of Falun Dafa practitioners. During the day, policemen with dogs stop passers-by and search their bags, arresting those found with Falun Gong material. In the evening, one policeman in each police station leads three to six riot police, patrolling with electric batons and hoping to arrest practitioners posting or spreading Dafa materials. There are all types of police vehicles on patrol around the clock. A large number of plain-clothes policemen and security personnel are sent out to follow practitioners. The officials force people close to Falun Dafa practitioners to watch them and wire the practitioners telephones. Workplace administrators collude with the police to fabricate charges against practitioners. They try to force practitioners to sign papers giving up Falun Dafa, arresting those who refuse to do so.

9. Some Cases of Persecution in Chongqing City

1. Feng Jun, male, is a policeman. He refused to sign a paper giving up practicing Falun Dafa and was arrested five days later, on July 8. He was on his way to work near the police substation of Changan No.1 Factory at the time. His whereabouts are unknown.

2. Xiang Shihua, male, is an employee of the Changan Factory. He, his wife Luo Piping, and son Xiangdong are all practitioners. None of them signed the paper giving up practicing Falun Gong, and as a result Xiang and his son were arrested. The police ransacked their house at 2 a.m. on the morning of July 7 and arrested Luo Piping on July 8.

3. Tang Lian (alias), female, was arrested on a bus on July Her whereabouts are unknown, despite the efforts of her family to find out from various government agencies.

4. Peng Qing, female, and Xiao Ming (alias), male, were followed by the police back to their home. The police ransacked their home at 2:30 a.m. on July 10, confiscating equipment worth 20,000 Yuan (about US $2,500).

5. Liu Ping, female, lives in Dadukou District. Her husband was sentenced to Xishanping Labor Camp for appealing in Beijing. Liu Ping herself was arrested at home on July 1, 2001. The policemen pried her security door open and then took her and her 11-year-old son by force. They also confiscated many Falun Dafa materials and a computer. Xiao Tao was also arrested at the same time. They are currently being detained in the Shaqu Detention Center.

6. Wang Shushan, female, is a retired employee of No.53 Primary School. She was arrested in May for spreading Falun Dafa materials, and the police ransacked her home at 4 a.m. the next morning. She is currently being detained in the Jiulongpo District Detention Center.

7. Cao Ping, male, is from Linshui County in Sichuan Province. He is currently being detained in the Linshui County Detention Center. Five of his family members are Falun Dafa practitioners. His mother was sent to a labor camp in 1999, while his father and elder sister were arrested this year. His older brother was arrested in June of 2001.

We hereby solemnly warn the police in Chongqing City to stop the persecution and release all practitioners unconditionally before it is too late to repent. Good is rewarded with good, and evil is met with evil.

10. Practitioner Bao Haizhen Arrested in Shanghai

Practitioner Bao Haizhen, female, 47, has been persistently practicing Falun Dafa and refusing to give in to the police. She was arrested by the police in the Changning substation of the Police Department in Shanghai. The police ransacked her home and confiscated her computer. She has been illegally detained since then, and her family has not been allowed to visit her. Her current whereabouts are unknown.

11.Hailstorm Lasts for Five Hours in Suihua City, Heilongjiang Province

A hailstorm assailed Suihua City in Heilongjiang Province for 5 hours, killing two and damaging a large area of crops. Shangzhi City was also the victim of three severe hailstorms.