Honghu City, Hubei Province: Brainwashing Sessions Forced on Falun Gong Practitioners

(Minghui.org) Since April 2021, officials of the Political and Legal Affairs Committee (PLAC), 610 Office, police stations and residential committees in Honghu City, Hubei Province, have been constantly harassing local Falun Gong practitioners and ordered them to write statements to renounce their faith. 

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline with core tenets of Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance, that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

When the practitioners refused to comply, the authorities threatened to shut down their businesses, force their employers to fire them or suspend their pensions. If the practitioners have children, the authorities also threatened that their children would be implicated in applying for college or finding jobs. 

Starting on July 20, 2021, the PLAC and 610 Office, two agencies tasked with overseeing the persecution of Falun Gong, began to organize brainwashing sessions and vowed to force every practitioner in Honghu to give up their faith in three years. 

Wang Peng and Zhou Gaotang of PLAC, and Zuo Shihong, the deputy director of Honghu City Domestic Security Office, held daily meetings with district PLAC offices, discussing how to intensify the persecution against the practitioners.

The brainwashing sessions are held in a two-story building in Yusha Road Transportation Escort Company. The first floor has offices and the second floor has three rooms. Each brainwashing session targets three practitioners, with each of them monitored by two staff members. 

Some of the staff members are migrant workers, who are paid 100-150 yuan each day. If the brainwashing center couldn’t hire enough migrant workers, they would turn to retired government employees. Some practitioners’ families who signed the renouncing statements on their behalf would also be called to the brainwashing session and assist in the “transformation” of the practitioners. Some people who practiced Falun Gong before but later gave it up were also hired to convert the practitioners.

After the practitioners who were forced to attend the first brainwashing session were released, they are still monitored and receive daily phone calls, checking on their situation. The authorities forbade them from talking to other local practitioners or revealing information about the brainwashing center. 

The brainwashing center is hosting the second session. The practitioners taken hinclude Mr. Chen Yong, Ms. Yu Hongyan and Mr. Wu Hao.

Mr. Chen was arrested by officers of the Xindi Police Station. He held a hunger strike for four days in the brainwashing center and was released after being resuscitated in the hospital. The authorities threatened that they weren’t done with him when releasing him.

Ms. Yu and Mr. Wu remain in the brainwashing center. Ms. Yu resisted the brainwashing by doing Falun Gong exercises. She also shouted “Falun Dafa is good; Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance is good” otin protest. In retaliation, the guards tied her up in the chair. One person revealed that they were having a shortage of manpower and that’s why they only target three practitioners at a time for each brainwashing session.

Perpetrators’ contact information:
Mao Xiliang (毛细亮), head of Honghu City Police Department: [phone]Liang Hong (梁红), head of Honghu City Domestic Security Office: [phone]Zuo Shihong (左世洪), deputy head of Honghu City Domestic Security Office: [phone]Zhou Gaotang (周高堂), deputy secretary of the Honghu City Political and Legal Affairs Committee: [phone]

(More Perpetrators’ contact information is available in the original Chinese article.)