Beijing Becomes the Capital of Terror in the Persecution of Those Who Believe in "Truth-Compassion-Forbearance"

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has never dared to acknowledge the fact that Falun Gong practitioners are being persecuted in China. In fact, the persecution in Beijing of those who believe in Truth-Compassion-Forbearance is particularly severe. Firsthand accounts by practitioners reveal how the authorities in Beijing use violence to force Falun Gong practitioners to denounce their belief. In particular, many government organisations are involved in the brutal persecution, including the Tiananmen Square Police Department, police departments in the various districts and counties of Beijing, detention centres, some hospitals, prisons, the Beijing Labour Camp Dispatch Centre, the Judicial Training Centre (a brainwashing centre), and various provincial and local government offices located in Beijing. Furthermore, the role Beijing plays in the persecution is particularly brutal in how it conducts surveillance and exerting control over people's thoughts, creating a chilling atmosphere that prevents the Chinese people from believing in or upholding their belief in Falun Gong.

"Mutual Surveillance" Prevents Protection of Falun Gong Practitioners

After over fifty-years of terrifying and often bloody political campaigns launched by the CCP, the Chinese people are constantly in a state of fear. When the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners was first launched, many people realised that this was another such campaign, and that it wouldn't last long. Most people were disgusted by the persecution even if they didn't know the truth about Falun Gong. Out of fear and self-preservation, however, they dared not publicly challenge the orders coming from their leadership. Nevertheless, after seeing the truth, some government officials and staff members have taken alternative means to protect Falun Gong practitioners by not carrying out or not seriously carrying out the government's order to persecute practitioners. In Beijing, where the CCP's power is most highly concentrated, however, even taking such low-key alternatives is tremendously risky for the officials.

In Beijing's Chaoyang District, a pair of practitioners had been shadowed for a long time. The local police officers in their area all knew that they both were good people. When the authorities finally arrested these practitioners, it turned out that officials from the Tongzhou District were actually responsible.

It was later confirmed that those who house-searched and arrested the practitioners came from four different government organisations, including the local residential committee, the neighbourhood association, the practitioners' work unit, and an agency known as the "6-10 Office" which was specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems. Apparently this is to force individuals from all four government organisations to monitor one another by putting them together to carry out one single task.

Normally, mutual surveillance is to prevent people from committing bad deeds, but in this case, it is to prevent people from following their conscience! Even if there are people who, after knowing the truth about Falun Gong, do not want to get involved in persecuting practitioners, based their painful and even bloody experiences in the political campaigns of the past, they will be afraid of being reported for protecting the practitioners. After all, there are always some people who want to get promoted or get a bonus by exploiting the opportunity to persecute Falun Gong practitioners. Besides, based on past experiences in various political campaigns under the CCP rule, informing on each other, even among relatives, is not uncommon in China, let alone among people from different government organisations. The practise of dispatching people from different government organisations to carry out the persecution is a sinister way to prevent officials from protecting Falun Gong practitioners.

Brainwashing is Widespread on School Campuses

There are many schools in Beijing. Normally one may think that elementary and middle schools stay out of politics, while colleges are full of diverse ideas, thoughts, and freedom. In China there are century-old schools, whose former students are all over the world. Under the tight control of the CCP, however, the campuses have become the very places to brainwash people and to deprive students and teachers alike of the basic right of belief. In fact, in the persecution campaign against Falun Gong, schools at all levels, even kindergartens, are involved, and no student or teacher is spared.

In 2003 there were at least 435 practitioners from 210 colleges who were forcefully sent to various brainwashing "conversion classes," forced labour camps, and psychiatric hospitals. Officials in China's educational system have used every possible tactic to systematically persecute practitioners, including laying off teachers and depriving students of their right to a higher education. Since 1999, in Tsinghua University alone, over 300 professors, faculty members, Ph.D. holders, and graduate and undergraduate students have been illegally imprisoned, laid off, dismissed from school, or directly sent to forced labour camps. Because schools use students' attitude towards Falun Gong as one criterion for admission or graduation, Falun Gong practitioners, their family members, and their supporters have lost their right to be admitted to secondary schools, colleges, universities, graduate schools, arts and military schools, etc.

As reported by the World Organisation to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG), Chen Zhili, China's former Minister of Education, carried out Jiang Zemin's policy of persecution in the educational system. She personally issued orders in the name of the Minister of Education to the education bureaus at provincial, municipal, district, and county levels to encourage teachers and students at every school to publicly denounce Falun Gong. She also set up special forums and organised meetings and conferences to criticise Falun Gong and organised and forced teachers and students to watch movies that defame Falun Gong. In schools all over the country, they organised the so-called "Million Signatures" campaign against Falun Gong. In addition, they have compiled and published slanderous information about Falun Gong in school textbooks and various exams, including college entrance exams.

These measures have spread from Beijing to every corner of China. As a result, teachers who refuse to attack Falun Gong or refuse to give up their belief in Falun Gong are laid off or imprisoned; students who refuse are dismissed from schools, barred from admission to higher education, or prevented from graduating. Some of them are forced to attend brainwashing sessions, sent to forced labour camps and psychiatric hospitals, or even tortured to death.

Tightly Controlled Media Creates and Promotes a Sense of Terror

During Jiang's anti-Falun-Gong "Million Signatures" campaign, one elderly non-practitioner gentleman who works for the State Education Committee was pressured to sign the anti-Falun-Gong petition. Outraged, he refused to sign. "How corrupt the CCP is!" he said.

It is not known how many people in China actually refused to sign the petition as the elderly gentleman did, but with the CCP's tight control of media and publications, none of the newspapers or TV programs would have reported it even if the number had been counted.

With an ever-growing number of newspapers and TV programs, some people get the false impression that the CCP is improving and Chinese people now have more freedom. This is certainly untrue.

When a practitioner from Beijing went to visit her hometown in a village in Henan Province, the villagers questioned her about Falun Gong, "Everyday the TV stations have reports that Falun Gong is bad. Why don't Falun Gong practitioners clarify the truth on TV?" Apparently many people don't know how CCTV operates.

As a matter of fact, the CCP has absolute control of television broadcasts, newspapers, magazines, and other media. As the Minghui website (the Chinese version of the Falun Gong website, Clearwisdom) has exposed, the Xinhua News Agency, the China News Agency, and the China News Service defame Falun Gong by fabricating so-called "news reports." Can anyone really believe that the literary and poetry magazines in China are free to publish what they choose? Will the CCP allow the Chinese people to freely navigate the Minghui website? Why is it that the heroes who tapped into the television cables to broadcast the truth of Falun Gong are being imprisoned, tortured, and even persecuted to death? Has any TV station in China dared to play the programs that the practitioners broadcast or let viewers comment on them? While many practitioners are excellent students and workers and many employers consider practitioner employees particularly trustworthy, has the media in China ever reported this kind of news since the authorities started to persecute Falun Gong practitioners in 1999?

With the various levels of CCP committees all over the country, who is better able to reach out into the countless publications and news media to suffocate any voice that objectively and impartially reports Falun Gong?

As the WOIPFG stated in its investigation report:

"The WOIPFG once investigated the authors who made up the slanderous stories about Falun Gong. When asked by investigators why, as news reporters, they made up the stories without considering basic occupational ethics, some reporters responded, 'We never wanted to write fabricated articles about Falun Gong. When we do, we just have to follow the instructions from upper management. As news reporters, we are told what to write and what not to write. For example, we have to go interview someone if we are instructed to do so. On the other hand, if we're told not to write about something, we simply cannot!' Some reporters claimed, 'With regard to Falun Gong, I'm no longer my own person but part of the organisation. Please understand me. I am writing as a representative of the Xinhua News Agency, not as myself. There is a big difference between the two.'"

As a news reporter, if he assists in persecuting practitioners and disregards basic morality, he is committing a bad deed. If those who control the reporter's job work behind the scenes to force him to assist the persecution, then they are the chief culprits. Needless to say, without the ominous threat of CCP-inspired terror that has permeated the mind of every person in China during the past decades, the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners would not be as vicious.