According to what Dr. Lee told the U.S. Consulate official, he is visited everyday by a top Communist Party official who tries to “transform” him. Authorities at the prison are also pressuring him through his family and, for the past month, have been forcefully taking him to long hours of brainwashing classes.
What are “brainwashing” classes?
Throughout his incarceration, many concerned parties around the world have expressed deep concern for Dr. Lee’s well-being, fearing he would be beaten or physically tortured like countless other Falun Gong practitioners who are held in China’s extensive labour camp system.
The true horror of what Dr. Lee and all Falun Gong practitioners in China face, however, is perhaps not solely the beatings and physical torture, but rather, a sinister collection of techniques and methods aimed at breaking the will and dissolving the spirit of a person. These methods are employed until the victim either loses his mental facilities or submits to the ideology of the oppressors such that he or she can be used to “transform” or “re-educate” others.
Consider the case of Mr. James Ouyang, reported by the Washington Post in 2001:
At a police station in western Beijing, Ouyang was stripped and interrogated for five hours. "If I responded incorrectly, that is if I didn't say, 'Yes,' they shocked me with the electric truncheon," he said.
Then, he was transferred to a labour camp in Beijing's western suburbs. There, the guards ordered him to stand facing a wall. If he moved, they shocked him. If he fell down from fatigue, they shocked him.
Each morning, he had five minutes to eat and relieve himself. "If I didn't make it, I went in my pants," he said. "And they shocked me for that, too."
By the sixth day, Ouyang said, he couldn't see straight from staring at plaster three inches from his face. His knees buckled, prompting more shocks and beatings. He gave in to the guards' demands.
For the next three days, Ouyang denounced [Falun Gong’s] teachings, shouting into the wall. Officers continued to shock him about the body and he soiled himself regularly. Finally, on the 10th day, Ouyang's repudiation of the group was deemed sufficiently sincere.
He was taken before a group of Falun Gong inmates and rejected the group one more time as a video camera rolled. Ouyang left jail and entered the brainwashing classes. Twenty days later after debating Falun Gong for 16 hours a day, he "graduated."
"The pressure on me was and is incredible," he said. "In the past two years, I have seen the worst of what man can do. We really are the worst animals on Earth."
Mr. Ouyang’s case is similar to thousands of cases that the European Falun Gong Information Centre has received over the last four years about practitioners who have been sent to brainwashing classes.
The Madness in The Method
This brainwashing may seem difficult to understand for Western readers, but it is a method that has been utilized and repeatedly refined in the successive, tumultuous political campaigns that have swept through China over the past fifty years since the Communist Party took power. It is a method of breaking a person’s will and usurping the entirety of his or her ideals, replacing them with the Party line.
Today, this refined method of destroying the will and spirit is one of the primary ways in which the former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin aims to “eradicate Falun Gong.” Among the methods reportedly used on Falun Gong practitioners in brainwashing sessions are:
- Severe sleep deprivation, starvation and little or no access to bathroom facilities for days or even weeks.
- Being hung by the wrists or all four limbs from the ceiling and receiving electric shocks to the body, including to the genitalia and head for prolonged periods.
- Sharpened bamboo sticks pierced through the finger tips and then prying up the finger nails.
- Being placed in front of videos that demonize the teachings of Falun Gong, and in which a variety of logical and rhetorical tricks are used to try to convince one how “stupid” he or she is for practicing Falun Gong, and that the principle of “Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance” is evil. If the person diverts their eyes from the screen, they are severely beaten or electrocuted.
- Having immediate family members – often scared and crying due to threats from authorities – forced to plead with those held in the brainwashing sessions to give up their beliefs.
- Being fired from one’s job, ridiculed in local newspapers, and told that the only way one will get out without giving up one’s belief is if one dies in the prison camp.
These techniques and variations of them are corroborated by countless eye-witness testimonies the European Falun Gong Information Centre has received over the past four years.
Right now, Dr. Charles Lee – a U.S. citizen, holding a U.S. passport – is alone in a Chinese jail with the full might of the Chinese regime weighing down on him to break his will. It is possible that his U.S. citizenship will allow him to escape severe physical torture, but the intent of the brainwashing classes he is forced to attend is the same, and the techniques utilized can be just as sinister.
It is clear that his captors want to make an example out of Dr. Lee. That is, transform him into a tool they can use to further demonize Falun Gong, and thereby advance Jiang Zemin’s cause to “eradicate Falun Gong.”
The international community cannot and must not condone such treatment, under the name of “brainwashing” or any other euphemism or excuse. It is a grotesque violation of human rights and is the very antithesis of freedom of belief.
Background
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a practice of meditation and exercises with teachings based on the universal principle of Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance. It is a practice that was taught in private for thousands of years before being made public in 1992 by Mr. Li Hongzhi. Falun Gong has roots in traditional Chinese culture, but it is distinct and separate from other practices such as the religions of Buddhism and Taoism. Since its introduction in 1992, it quickly spread by word of mouth throughout China, and is now practiced in over 50 countries.
With government estimates of as many as 100 million practicing Falun Gong, Chinas then-Communist leader, Jiang Zemin, outlawed the peaceful practice in July 1999, fearful of anything touching the hearts and minds of more citizens than the Communist Party. Unable to crush the spirit of millions who had experienced improved health and positive life changes from Falun Gong, Jiangs regime has intensified its propaganda campaign to turn public opinion against the practice while quietly imprisoning, torturing and even murdering those who practice it. To that end, Jiang established the 6-10 Office, a Gestapo-like agency spanning from the Central Government to the local governments. The United States Congress has described the 6-10 Office as an agency charged with overseeing the persecution of Falun Gong members through organized brainwashing, torture, and murder.
The European Falun Gong Information Centre has verified details of 818 deaths since the persecution of Falun Gong in China began in 1999. In October 2001, however, Government officials inside China reported that the actual death toll was well over 1,600. Expert sources now estimate that figure to be much higher. Hundreds of thousands have been detained, with more than 100,000 being sentenced to forced labour camps, typically without trial.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT THE EUROPEAN FALUN GONG INFORMATION CENTRE
Peter Jauhal 44 (0) 7717 508 268 Nicolas Schols 32 (0) 479875734
More contacts: http://www.falungonginfo.net/europe.htm
Email: [email protected]
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