The Terrorist-Style Persecution Tactics of the National Security Bureau 610 Office in Chongqing (Part I)

According to preliminary estimates, at least 1,000 Falun Gong practitioners who had experienced tremendous improvements in their health from practising Falun Gong, died after torture, brainwashing and abuse by personnel from the "610 Office" of the National Security Bureau. Another 1,000 practitioners were seriously injured and disabled from suffering insidious torture in brainwashing classes, detention centres and labour camps. The official policy of the National Security "610 Office" toward practitioners is to "defame their reputation, bankrupt them financially and destroy them physically." In addition, many practitioners' elderly parents became seriously ill or even died as a result of the anguish they experienced over the brutal atrocities and terrorist-like threats carried out by the perpetrators. The following are just a sampling of persecution cases that resulted in the death of practitioners or of their family members.

Many Practitioners Lose Their Lives as a Direct Result of the Persecution

He Yongwen from Jianshe Village in Dadukou District, Lao Chen from Dayan Village, Lao Deng from Changzheng Factory, Lai Shuyao from Yuzhong District and other Falun Gong practitioners, all used to suffer severe illnesses. After practising Falun Gong for a short time, those illnesses disappeared without a trace. They used to depend on their family members to look after them, but became healthy after practising, and they were even able to take care of other family members. After the persecution started in 1999, because they continued to practise Falun Gong, these practitioners were subjected to constant harassments by the "610 Office," which led to their homes being repeatedly searched, threats and abduction to brainwashing classes. In the end, these practitioners died one after another as a result of the relentless torment they endured.

In 2001, Liu Xingmei and her daughter were both abducted and held in a labour camp for brainwashing. Ms. Liu's husband, Mr. Lei, who was nearly 70 years old, was also abducted and detained. He passed away shortly after.

Elderly Parent of Practitioners Dies Because their Children are Persecuted and Cannot Take Care of Them

In 2002, after practitioner Guo Xizhen's house was ransacked a few times and she was abducted several times by personnel from the "610 Office," her father was left alone by himself without anyone to take care of him and he also passed away as a result.

In July 2000, Guo Xizhen and her husband Mr. Ding Changhong, went to Yongchuan area to visit some relatives. The local police in charge of household registration and the head of the neighbourhood committee were alerted, and they led the Party secretary and the head of the Asbestos Factory as well as security personnel from the factory, to arrest Ms. Guo and Mr. Ding and abducted them, taking them back to Chongqing. Soon after that, they ransacked the couple's home and sentenced Ms. Guo to two years of forced labour. She was sent to Maojiashan Women's Forced Labour Camp for further persecution. In August 2002, Guo Xizhen came home from the labour camp; yet, because Ding Changhong's electric appliance service store could no longer survive the repeated disturbance from personnel of the National Security, plus the fact that Ms. Guo was laid off by her work unit, her over 80-year-old father could not get medical treatment for lack of money. Personnel from the "610 Office" took everything from their home. Having no resources for living, the neighbours urged them to go and apply for minimum governmental financial subsidy. But when they went to the community service office, the personnel there tried to force them to write down, "Falun Gong is a [slanderous term omitted]," otherwise their application would be denied. They had no way out but to leave their elderly parent sick in bed at home and go out of town to look for jobs.

Shortly after that, Ms. Guo's father's condition deteriorated and the two of them had to come back home to look after their sick parent. Soon after they got home, Hua Yong and the political commissar as well as others from the National Security Branch in Dadukou District, came to arrest them. These people completely ignored the condemnations from the neighbours and onlookers, and illegally confiscated the money that Ms. Guo and Mr. Ding had earned to pay for medical treatment for the seriously sick father. The perpetrators also took some books and other personal belongings. The couple was abducted and taken to the National Security Branch, and from there they were then sent to a detention centre. A month later they were put into a drug-abuse rehabilitation centre and held for 20 days. After that, Ms. Guo and Mr. Ding were held in a brainwashing class. Soon, Ms. Guo's elderly father died out of anguish.

When Guo Xizhen and Ding Changhong asked the lawless personnel from the "610 Office" why they took the money that had been earmarked for treating their parent's illness, those people shamelessly said, "We needed to use the money to bail you out."

The Crimes of the "610 Office"

The persecution of Falun Gong practitioners at the hands of the "610 Office" enforcers from Chongqing National Security Branch is far beyond people's imagination. Up to three practitioners from Chongqing's Railroad Sub-bureau alone have been beaten to death by the perpetrators in the "610 Office."

The duty of the National Security Bureau (NSB) is supposed to defend the constitution and the law and to safeguard people's happiness and prosperity; but in recent years the NSB personnel have completely degenerated into becoming Jiang Zemin's accomplices and even took the initiative to establish the various "610 Offices."

Let us take a look at what the Chongqing National Security "610 Office" has done to persecute law-abiding Falun Dafa practitioners.

The Early Days of the Persecution: The "610 Office" Stirred Up Trouble Everywhere and Created Conflicts

Before October 1998, according to some statistics, the Chongqing area alone had more than 100,000 Falun Gong practitioners. This number does not include practitioners living outside of the urban area. At least 200,000 copies of the book Zhuan Falun (1) were published through various channels, yet the number still fell short of demand. Up until the beginning of the persecution on July 20, 1999, large groups of people got to know Falun Gong. According to a 1999 report in the Chongqing Daily, in Nanping alone, tens of thousands of Falun Gong books were burned at the onset of the persecution.

In July 1998, Chongqing National Security officers went everywhere in the city to stir up conflict in an attempt to defame Falun Gong. For example, at practice sites special agents appeared, pretending to learn the exercises. In addition, "610 Office" personnel manipulated newspapers such as the Chongqing Evening News, the Luzhou Daily and others to twist the facts, and published articles slandering Falun Gong. The local practitioners protested strongly against such deliberate defamation, which was then used as an excuse by the National Security Branch for their blatant rumors that "Falun Gong attacked government agencies." However, when a Chongqing Evening News security guard testified as one of the witnesses in the Yuzhong District Court in October 1999, he took out his work log and read, "Falun Gong came to appeal in an orderly fashion. There was no hubbub, nor was there any disturbance. Because of so many practitioners coming, they were arranged to enter the newspaper reception office two at a time. After two people came out, another two would be admitted."

At the end of 1998, after the special agents from the National Security Bureau found out that their conduct had been exposed, all of them left the group practice sites. In early 1999, the National Security Bureau directed the Chongqing Municipal Government to draft the persecution policy entitled, "Falun Gong practitioners' family members cannot get a pay raise." After this policy was exposed, the National Security Bureau tried to frame Falun Gong with "attempting to damage the national security."

In early 1999, personnel from the National Security Bureau went to take pictures at all Falun Gong group practice sites and secretly followed practitioners. Some special agents went to practitioners' homes, saying they wanted to learn the practice or to borrow Falun Gong books. But all the addresses they left with practitioners were false, and they never returned.

Since March 1999, the National Public Security Bureau started to comprehensively notify the various city management offices and all of the work units where practice sites were located, in order to interrupt Falun Gong practitioners' exercise practice and their study of the Fa (2). For example, at one practice site they threw empty bottles at practitioners and poured water on them. They also drove away the practitioners who were practising the exercises in front of the Assembly Hall. At the Chaotianmen practice site they beat practitioners and attempted to provoke conflicts.

At the beginning of June 1999, the National Security Bureau's"610 Office" established a blacklist of almost 4,000 Falun Gong practitioners as core members, and printed this in the printing house of Chongqing Prison. They then traced and monitored these practitioners.

In the early morning of July 20, 1999, the National Security personnel secretly abducted 11 Falun Gong practice site coordinators and searched and ransacked their homes. In the following few days they again secretly abducted more than 100 Falun Gong volunteer instructors across the city.

On July 21, hundreds of National Security police brutally beat more than 3,000 Falun Gong practitioners who went to appeal in front of the city auditorium. The practitioners were dragged into vehicles, had their money taken away and were unlawfully sent to different counties. The farthest county was Da County, where the police pushed Falun Gong practitioners out of the vehicles and drove away.

A large number of national security police brutally beat Falun Gong practitioner Li Jian, who had come from Dazu County to appeal at the appeals office. They called him "thief" and "gangster" while beating him. They also threatened others who came to appeal, yelling out, "We are thugs! So what! What can you do?"

In the meantime, those Falun Gong practitioners who were abducted went through a few months of "interrogation" with more than ten National Security policemen repeatedly interrogating one practitioner at a time about various issues they had fabricated to frame Falun Gong. Practitioners were deprived of sleep for several days and nights at a time. Because the police investigations verified that all of the practitioners were extremely kind and had become the most valuable workers in their work units after they started practising Falun Gong, the National Security police had to allow some Falun Gong practitioners to go home but they continued to keep them under surveillance.

Halting the Legal Appeals Procedure

To stop Falun Gong practitioners from coming to appeal, the local government officials and the police blocked road intersections between July 22 and 25 so that they could arrest the practitioners who came to appeal. A large number of National Security plainclothes police officers spread rumors in front of the city auditorium, saying "Falun Gong practitioners came to self-immolate and to attack the government." When asked why they would do this, these rumour mongers didn't know what to say and became speechless. In the meantime, they fabricated a lot of false articles, claiming that they were written by the founder of Falun Gong, while in fact the content had nothing to do with the practice of Falun Gong.

In October 1999, the National Security "610 Office" manipulated the Chongqing Daily and other newspapers to wantonly propagandize the "public trial of [Falun Gong practitioner] Gu Zhiyi." However, on the day the court session opened, plainclothes police agents were everywhere in front of the Yuzhong District Court. The National Security Bureau authorities did not permit Mr. Gu's attorney to produce any evidence. They did not even grant an opportunity for oral defense. Moreover, they arrested a Falun Gong practitioner from Jiangbei City who had come to witness the hearing.

In January 2000, Chongqing National Security "610 Office" representatives directly intervened in the work of the post office and intercepted over 4,000 appeals letters. They then manipulated the leaders of work units, street administration offices, police stations and neighbourhood committees to persecute those practitioners who wrote the appeals letters. They forced these practitioners to write unconditional "no appeal" guarantees, and illegally put hundreds of practitioners who appealed into detention centres or forced labour camps.

In order to follow and monitor practitioners and to prevent the truth of the persecution against Falun Gong from becoming known to the masses of people, the Chongqing National Security "610 Office" also forced the post office to remove conveniently placed mailboxes and ordered the post office to install devices to monitor mail senders and recipients. Since that time, all letters and packages in the city were monitored, which directly led to hundreds of thousands of personal letters being lost every year.

Escalating the Persecution

On August 18, 2000, personnel from the "610 Office" took the blacklist they had established before July 20, 1999, of almost 4,000 "core" Falun Gong practitioners, to police stations, street administration offices and neighbourhood committees and asked them to jointly establish brainwashing classes. This new round of persecution forced thousands of Falun Gong practitioners in the city to leave their homes to avoid near-certain arrest. Then the National Security "610 Office" ordered the street offices and committees to find the practitioners. Many work unit leaders were weary of the "610 Office" enforcers' endless eating, drinking, taking, demanding, and swindling in the name of "persecuting Falun Gong," so they simply laid off Falun Gong practitioners with the excuse that "they had failed to turn up at work for 15 days." Seeing there wasn't any more profit to make, "610 Office" enforcers ordered the leaders, "Go and get them back! We have not finished with you yet. Don't you want to be promoted?" Many leaders were forced to fight back saying, "Even you professionals could not get them, how could we?" The "610 Office" agents tried to ingratiate themselves with the work unit leaders by saying, "It would count toward your political advancement as long as you send Falun Gong practitioners to the police station."

In 2000, Chongqing National Security also spent a huge sum of money on the purchase of electrostatic wave detectors from abroad [solely for the persecution of Falun Gong]. They used the devices to locate all xerography and electrostatic printers in the city, in an attempt to sabotage the truth-clarifying work of Falun Gong practitioners. In October, to deceive the public, National Security, under the excuse of taking a census, willfully arrested Falun Gong practitioners who had left home to avoid further persecution. At the same time, they focused their "census" work on the registration of families that own computers.

(To be continued)

Notes

(1) Zhuan Falun is the principal text of Falun Dafa and comprises the principal teachings.

(2) Fa: Law and principles; the teachings of Falun Dafa.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.ca/mh/articles/2004/9/27/85157.html