(Minghui.org) A Wuhan City, Hubei Province, resident in recent months has been subjected to two back-to-back brainwashing sessions aimed to force her to renounce her faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
Ms. Xiong Lihua’s ordeal stemmed from an incident on January 13, 2024, when the 47-year-old teacher at the Qiaokou District Gymnasium Elementary School talked to an elderly man at a bus station about Falun Gong. A woman nearby overheard the conversation and reported her to the police.
Two officers from the Baofeng Police Station and three agents from the Qiaokou District Domestic Security Division broke into Ms. Xiong’s home four days later. They confiscated her Falun Gong books, computer, five flash drives, and a boombox.
Ms. Xiong was detained for 15 days. On February 1, 2024, the day she was scheduled to be released, officer Zhou from the Changfeng Police Station, located in her residential area, and several people from a local brainwashing center attempted to seize her. They relented upon her family’s strong protest.
After school began in February 2024, Tao Jun (+86-13100603319), the school’s Party secretary, ordered Ms. Xiong to write down details of her arrest and detention. He also notified her that the local board of education and the Political and Legal Affairs Committee (an extra-judicial agency tasked with overseeing the persecution of Falun Gong) had decided to send her to a brainwashing center. They threatened to terminate her employment if she defied the order.
Ms. Xiong firmly refused to comply, as no law in China has criminalized Falun Gong. The local board of education and the Political and Legal Affairs Committee held a one-month brainwashing session right at her school. Starting on March 25, 2024, a local brainwashing center sent in two people every day to Ms. Xiong’s school to “teach” her how to “break free from Falun Gong.” She learned their surnames were Zhang, Yang, Chang, Yan, and You, but she did not know their first names.
These “teachers” sometimes stayed all day and other times for half a day. They also gave Ms. Xiong “homework” to do. She refused to buy into their warped notions about Falun Gong and instead exposed the illegal persecution on the “homework” sheet.
After the one-month brainwashing session concluded, secretary Tao informed Ms. Xiong that she did poorly and failed to pass muster with the local board of education and the Political and Legal Affairs Committee. They ordered her to attend another brainwashing session starting in May 2024 while on unpaid leave. An agent from the brainwashing center threatened to take her to the center if she still failed to “meet the requirements” at the end of the second in-school brainwashing session.
It is unclear whether the threat of a pay suspension has materialized.
A Similar Persecution Episode Spanning 2020-2021
Prior to her latest persecution, Ms. Xiong experienced a similar episode spanning 2020 and 2021. Her husband received a phone call from secretary Tao on the night of July 18, 2020 asking if she had gone out to distribute Falun Gong flyers that day. Tao and two other administrators questioned Ms. Xiong when she went to work the next morning. They ordered her to sign written records of their questioning. She refused, and they threatened her with job termination.
Four plainclothes officers from the Wuhan City Domestic Security Division descended upon Ms. Xiong’s school on the morning of September 1, 2020. They searched her handbag and office desk, confiscating one Falun Gong book, about ten flash drives, 38 cards of QR codes (used to overcome the CCP’s firewall to access uncensored information), and one amulet bearing Falun Gong messages.
The police took Ms. Xiong back home and seized a portrait of the founder of Falun Gong. They proceeded to interrogate her at a local police station. After that, they forced her to undergo a physical examination at a hospital before taking her to the Wuhan City First Lockup at 11 p.m. that day. Fifteen days later, a group of agents from the local police station, the Wuhan City Domestic Security Division, and the local 610 Office picked her up and took her straight to the Etouwan Brainwashing Center. Her school principal Gao Jing (+86-13437196071) and secretary Tao warned her to “focus on her study” at the brainwashing center.
Ms. Xiong was kept in a room whose windows were all covered tight. She was not allowed to turn off the light during sleep. Her school later hired people at 150 yuan per person per day, to monitor her around the clock and prevent her from doing the Falun Gong exercises.
The brainwashing center gave Ms. Xiong only a meager amount of food every day. They also intentionally cooked extremely spicy food, causing her to become constipated and have blood in her stool. Yet the brainwashing center did not call in a doctor to examine her until ten days into her constipation. They even taunted her saying, “Don’t you Falun Gong people have no illnesses whatsoever? Why are you still constipated?”
Ms. Xiong was also ordered to watch, listen to, or read anti-Falun Gong materials every day. She refused to write statements to renounce her faith and the brainwashing center threatened her with a prison sentence and said they would implicate her family as well. She still held firm to her faith and they extended the time every day to expose her to their anti-Falun Gong materials. They also turned up the volume on the videos and audio materials. Even the school-arranged monitors were annoyed by the noise and complained about headaches.
The brainwashing center staffers later printed out four sheets of paper with anti-Falun Gong messages and put them on the chairs. They then forced Ms. Xiong to sit on the chairs. She could not stand to see Falun Gong and its founder insulted this way and wrote statements to renounce her faith against her will. The staffers there had her revise her statements several times until they were satisfied. They next videotaped her reading out her statements aloud. Party Secretary Tao from her school ordered the brainwashing center to still keep her there if she failed to reach “a deep understanding of her crime in practicing Falun Gong.” He offered to send in teachers to monitor Ms. Xiong if needed.
The brainwashing center notified Tao on November 13, 2020 to come pick Ms. Xiong up that day. Tao and director Yu Yuanli (+86-18942922273) arrived and called a taxi to accompany her home. They then videotaped her and her husband before leaving. Five days later, they notified Ms. Xiong that she could return to work. They interrogated her a week later and ordered her to sign and fingerprint the written records. They also demanded that she keep her phone on 24 hours a day so she could answer their calls at any time.
Tao and Xu later ordered all teachers to sign a pledge to not promote “anti-CCP” messages to their students or access overseas websites.
Tao instructed Xu to call Ms. Xiong on December 25, 2020. She did not answer the phone. Xu called her again on the morning of January 2, 2021, with the excuse of discussing a work-related matter with her.
Tao had Xu and another administrator interrogate Ms. Xiong on January 6, 2021. She refused to comply and Xu printed out a list of questions for her to sign. She said she wouldn’t sign. Principal Gao threatened to turn Ms. Xiong in to police. Tao followed up by calling the police, who said they’d arrive at the school at 3 p.m. that day. Ms. Xiong left school during lunch break and was forced to live away from home for a while to avoid being arrested.
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Wuhan Opens Nine New Brainwashing Centers to Incarcerate Steadfast Falun Gong Practitioners
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