Witness to the Crimes Committed at the Hebei Provincial Brainwashing Centre

In late summer of 2002, I was seized and taken to the Hebei Provincial Brainwashing Centre (officially known as the Hebei Province Legal Training Centre) by the local police and security officers from my work unit. Due to my fear and being unable to withstand the torture, I renounced Dafa after being brainwashed. I then became a collaborator [former Falun Dafa practitioners who have given up their practice under severe pressure and torture and now assist the authorities in the persecution of Falun Dafa practitioners] and helped the perpetrators to persecute practitioners. I witnessed the following incidents of police and collaborators torturing practitioners.

The brainwashing centre is located on Beicheng Road, Shijiazhuang City, which is close to the First and Second Detention Centres and the 1st, 3rd, and the 5th brigades of the forced labour camp. It used to be a forced labour camp. The outside steel gate always remained closed, guarded 24 hours a day and monitored by video cameras. Dafa practitioner Wu Yongxin once posted truth-clarification signs on the front gate but was arrested when the surveillance cameras discovered him.

There are two buildings, south and north. The 1st and 2nd floors of the South Building hold the offices for the police officers. From the rusty windows and steel doors of the un-renovated 3rd floor, one can see evidence that it used to be a forced labour camp. The 1st and 2nd floors of the North Building are where Dafa practitioners are detained. There are two big classrooms and 6 meeting rooms (where Dafa practitioners are persecuted). The police guarding rooms and collaborators' living spaces are located on the first floor. Surveillance devices and camera monitors are installed in each classroom, meeting room and corridors. Every window is reinforced with steel bars. Police officers guard the doors 24 hours a day, so practitioners are not allowed to pass freely.

About 90% of Dafa practitioners were abducted here, while the others were tricked into coming. As soon as practitioners entered the centre, they were immediately put through a regimen of psychological torture, 24 hours a day. The collaborators and police took turn brainwashing practitioners. Each practitioner was monitored 24 hours a day by two people assigned to them from their work unit. If any practitioner conducted a hunger strike to protest the mistreatment, the police officers along with four guards force-fed them. If Dafa practitioners still refused to renounce their belief, they were deprived of sleep for 6 consecutive days. The police officers punched practitioners in the eyes, pinched their arms, hit their heads, etc. to prevent practitioners from falling asleep in order to destroy their will and force them to renounce their belief in Falun Dafa by signing form a guarantee to stop practising Dafa. The torture is cruel and debilitating. Only a person with a will of steel could endure it.

Dafa practitioner Zhang Yun who used to work at the Luquan Jail in Shijiazhuang City was deprived of sleep for 17 days and nights and fainted while standing. She collapsed, falling down and breaking her teeth. Post graduate student Liu Lifeng from the Hebei Economic Committee was forcibly deprived of sleep for many days. Ms. Ding Liyan was tricked into going to the brainwashing centre by her husband who could not handle the intense pressure from the Government after her younger brother (who works at the Luancheng County Party Officials Section) paid 6000 yuan*. Immediately after she regained her own thoughts after going through the first round of brainwashing, the officers brainwashed her a second time. When she did not renounce her belief in Falun Dafa after 8 sleepless days and nights, the brainwashers tortured her by pouring wine in her mouth [Falun Dafa practitioners do not drink alcohol or smoke. Pouring alcohol down their throats and cigarettes in their noses is a common torture at labour camps and brainwashing centres to degrade practitioners], beating her, and not allowing her to use the toilet. Using force, they wrote words that defamed Dafa and Teacher all over her face, arms and hands. She was mostly tortured late at night when others were sleeping and even the people assigned from her work unit to monitor her were not allowed there.

Never believe the words that attack Dafa on the fabricated apology letters as shown on TV. They have deceived many people into believing that former Dafa practitioners are very regretful. But no one knows of the cruel reality behind each of the letters. Those words were written under extreme mental and physical torture and when one was forced to act against one's own will.

Practitioners who have remained steadfast under intense pressure are sentenced to jails, sent to forced labour camps, fired from work, forced to leave home or even tortured to death just because they wanted to say "Falun Dafa Is Good!" Yet the state-run TV stations or newspapers in China never broadcast such truths. Only when a practitioner is forced to betray his or her faith through extreme pressure or torture, do the lying media make use of it on a large scale to deceive the public.

The cruellest torture may not be the physical tortures inflicted on the practitioners. It is when one is deprived of the right to think as happens in the brainwashing centre. Also many Falun Gong practitioners detained in the brainwashing centre and their families have been torn apart. Some even died.

Ms. Zhang Yun from the Luquan Jail was sent to the forced labour camp because of her determined faith in Dafa. After she was released from the camp, she was abducted to the brainwashing centre. She is a single parent with a teenage daughter. After she was arrested, her relatives were scared and stayed away because they feared being persecuted, which has left her daughter alone and in a difficult situation.

Zhao Baoxing formerly was a millionaire from his cashmere business. Both he and his wife are Dafa practitioners. Under the persecution, his wife was forced to leave home. He went to Beijing to tell people that Falun Dafa is good, but was arrested and taken to a detention centre where his arm was broken from the beating by the officers. In the detention centre, his purity and kindness moved the criminals who were jailed there. As he was injured, the criminals helped him raise his broken arm up in order for him to practise the Dafa exercises.

What was beyond the understanding of the police officers and ordinary people is that he won respect from his neighbours and people he did business with. When he was detained, residents from the entire block around his home went to visit him. Also a businessman went to the jail to sign a business contract with him. As it was difficult for the local officers to persecute him, he was sent to the Provincial Brainwashing Centre wearing only his pants and vest and was penniless. His two children travelled over one hundred kilometers to visit him but were refused by the police because it was not visiting day. His children left in tears. When it got cold, the officers in the brainwashing centre showed no concern that Baoxing did not have extra clothes to wear. Luckily, practitioners who had been released left him some warm clothes.

The brainwashing center is a place where many unspeakable crimes have been committed in the persecution of Dafa practitioners.

When a practitioner broke down under the severe pressure and torture and wrote promises to break from Dafa and show regret for one's past activities, that was just the beginning of the mental torture. Crueller torture methods always followed.

After agreeing to renounce their belief in Dafa, practitioners were forced to take part in the "study class" to show gratitude to Jiang Zemin's regime and the police officers. Practitioners were forced to accept more propaganda slandering Dafa from the lies fabricated by the CCTV and endless brainwashing materials on the VCDs, videos, etc that relentlessly defamed Dafa and its founder.

Many were "transformed" because they could not bear the mental torture, but in their hearts, they still respected Teacher and Dafa and wanted to practise. They just did not dare to show it publicly. Under extreme pressure and against their will, they wrote articles to criticize Dafa and revealed other Dafa practitioners to the police officers. Under such mental tortures, many suffered mental problems or even went into a mentally ill state. Only those who have experienced such torture know the meaning of hell, where one day is longer than a year, and being alive is no better that being dead.

Those who agreed to renounce their belief in Dafa were in an even worse situation, especially for those collaborators who assisted in persecuting other Dafa practitioners. While they walk on the road of persecuting Dafa practitioners, they have lost their ability to judge the difference between kindness and evil, or even abandoned their moral standard completely. Not only did they stop practising Dafa, they indulged themselves in drinking, gambling, etc. for fun. What's even worse is that they acted as assistants for the police officers in persecuting Dafa practitioners. They have destroyed many people's lives. Being "transformed" is actually being "degenerated."

Due to the pressure from Jiang Zemin's regime and the policy of involving all relations, many company leaders have sent Dafa practitioners whom they know are very good people to the brainwashing centre in order to protect their positions and personal benefits in the company. For each practitioner sent to the brainwashing centre, the company had to pay 10,000 to 20,000 yuan. During the July and August 2002 mass arrest period, the companies who assisted the most to persecute Dafa practitioners included:

The Hebei Medicine Factory, The Shijiazhuang First Medicine Factory, Huabei Medicine Factory (The above three belongs to the Shijiazhuang Medicine Manufacturing Bloc);

The First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Cotton Textile Factory (The six belongs to the Shijiazhuang Textile Bloc);

Shijiazhuang Oil Refinery, The 54 Institute of the Mechanical and Electrical Ministry, Shijiazhuang Chemical Fertilizer Factory.

Shijiazhuang Heat Electricity Factory ( which belongs to the Hebei Electricity System).

Surrounding counties include: Zhengding, Luancheng, Gaoyi, Gaocheng, Xingtang etc.

Collaborators who are still persecuting Dafa practitioners include: Zhao Juyong, Wang Bo, Yang Jie, Xun Xiao, Yang Kailiang, Li Linping, Li Jinli, Gu Yuehong, You Liping, Jin Weiping, Song Zhengfeng, Li Ming, Shi Xiangdong, Li Qing, Ma Nianbing, Li Jinxiao, Shi Jinhua, Wei Shufen, Xie Suxing, Zhen Lanmei, Liang Ziling, Huang Feng, Li Man, Cui Lixin, Shang Zhendian, et.al. (Many others who have aided in persecuting Dafa practitioners realized their mistake and have published solemn declarations and renewed their practice of Falun Dafa).

Police officers who directly persecuted Dafa include: Kong Fanyun, Yuan Shuqian, Wang Jianguo, Liu Fengzhen, Lu Huiying, Wang Jiafeng, Zhang (teaching exercises), Yang et.al. Li Jin and Wang Jianguo are from the Shijiazhuang City "610 Office" [an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems.] but stayed in the brainwashing centre.

Clouds cannot cover the sun forever. Lies can only cheat people for a while. Most practitioners who have been brainwashed are gradually recovering. Take myself as an example. I saw the cruelty, lies, and fighting with others in the police officer's behaviour. I saw the deteriorating behaviour of collaborators and myself after we stopped practising Dafa. My illnesses also returned. With repeated reminding from our compassionate Teacher, through all the above experiences, I gradually have come back to the right way and renewed my practice of Falun Dafa again.

yuan* [ the monthly salary for an average Chinese urban worker is about 500 yuan].

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/12/18/62769.html