The Systematic Persecution of Falun Gong Practitioners within the Chinese Military System

The Chinese Communist military organisation has played a major role in Jiang Zemin's regime's persecution of Falun Gong.

The military has set up the 610 Office (1) system within its complex organisational structure, extending from the top to the bottom, to persecute Falun Gong. At the upper levels of the Chinese military, the General Political Department established the 610 Office, headed by leaders from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee, with the Security Department in charge of the details. Usually, the director of the department would be the nominal head of the 610 Office, with a deputy director being specially designated to oversee the actual persecution of Falun Gong. In addition, there are specific people from the Security Department to be responsible to carry out the suppression. The 610 Office within the Chinese military system also set up several other teams, which hired political writers to deceive and brainwash practitioners in the different military regions nationwide. The military also organised and published books slandering Falun Dafa.

The Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Second Artillery Force and the Armed Police Force all established their own associated 610 Office system. Anything related to Falun Gong is regarded as an "urgent issue" and is dealt with in an "urgent manner," with provision of all the resources, manpower and materials required.

According to an internal source, these top secret departments are on duty 24 hours a day; they are told to report any information related to Falun Gong immediately without delay, even if the report may arrive at midnight; otherwise, it will be regarded as a violation of military rules. During one period, a certain regiment had received dozens of telegraphs related to Falun Gong within one week. In military political organs, the persecution of Falun Gong becomes a daily routine. They are required to report at regular times every day about the situation relating to the persecution and the status of key Falun Gong practitioners in each unit. There are also 610 Offices in every corps, division and regiment to execute specific persecution orders.

Take the Armed Police Force for example; a deputy political commissar surnamed Zhang from the headquarters is the top responsible person for the persecution in this branch of the military. Its political department and security department, its subordinate branches in various provinces and municipalities directly under the Central Government, its various divisions, and security sections of command posts, all established their own 610 Office headed by the main officer in charge of political affairs, with the security sections carrying out the specific tasks. Each regiment established a 610 Team, headed by the political commissar and the leaders of other departments, with personnel from the security department being team members, to carry out specific persecution orders from Jiang's regime.

These political thugs attack, frame, and slander Falun Gong at all kinds of meetings. They frame Falun Gong, saying it has support from Western anti-China forces and stir up hostile sentiments amongst officers and soldiers against Falun Gong. They hold exhibitions to frame and slander Falun Gong. They organise so-called "exposing and criticising" mass meetings and require officers and soldiers to actively give speeches against Falun Gong. Under the strict blockade of the truth, the officers and soldiers do not have the slightest idea what "Zhuan Falun" (2) is all about, yet they have to write a critique of it in order to accomplish the assigned task. They have to make something up or echo rumours and innuendo from the Chinese Communist media. Many people's minds are thus poisoned and deceived. The deceived officers and soldiers are further used as unwitting tools in the persecution and they have committed numerous crimes against Dafa.

In its persecution of Falun Gong, this system has used every manner of scheme they could think of, and some schemes are quite shameful. For example, during a political background check in a yearly recruiting effort, an army unit even requested each recruit to write three sentences to slander Teacher Li Hongzhi (the founder of Falun Gong) and Falun Gong, in order to discern whether or not one was a practitioner. If a potential recruit has any relatives who practise Falun Gong, he would be implicated and be subject to punishment. A young man from Sichuan Province was immediately removed from the draft because it was found that his mother was a practitioner. A military officer had an aunt who practised Falun Gong. The officer was immediately ordered to leave military service. The military even ordered that if those who had been transferred to civilian work were found still participating in Falun Gong activities, their former military units and their former leaders would have to take the responsibility and be punished. Therefore, from the top downward, in order to maintain their positions, all levels of military leaders do their best to persecute practitioners.

In the Communist army, the evil regime, on one hand, spreads lies and vicious slander to deceive officers and soldiers; on the other hand, it builds up a terrifying political atmosphere that makes everyone feel threatened and not dare to be associated with Falun Gong. The officers and solders are influenced so much that they turn pale at the mention of Falun Gong in public. A deputy commissar mentioned that during a search at a practitioner's home, when he saw a collection of many Dafa books and photos, he "was so frightened that his legs were trembling." A practitioner in the army suffered persecution; his practitioner wife went to the army unit many times to request the release of her husband. She would tell people the truth about Falun Gong to everyone she met. A leader was moved and said, "She tells the plain truth." The head of the security section was astonished and said to her, "You are too frightening; even more so than an atomic bomb!"

Since 1999, the Chinese army started to conduct several political reviews each year on either specified or unspecific dates by special examiners. When filling out the review form, one has to state his or her view and attitude towards Falun Gong; whether one has practised Falun Gong before, and whether one's relatives practise Falun Gong. The review form would then be verified and stamped by the work units of one's relatives. It would eventually be signed by one's superior and inspected by the chief political commissar. The security department would then file the form and report to the higher authorities.

Archives for "key-figure Dafa practitioners" are established. Tight arrangements are made for specially designated personnel to monitor every practitioner, keeping track of all their movements. It is required that Dafa practitioners' activities be reported to the higher authorities every day and summarized and reported every week. A certain officer didn't pay much attention to monitoring practitioners, which made the political commissar in the unit fly into a rage. He yelled, "It's out of control!"

In persecuting practitioners, the military organisation spares no effort. The military and the local 610 Offices collaborate with each other in their persecution of Falun Gong, making use of all kinds of methods. Their means of persecution include sentencing to prison, sending practitioners to forced labour, holding forced brainwashing classes, suspending practitioners' salaries, and revoking their housing permits. In addition, they torment practitioners mentally and torture them physically, threatening, tempting with personal gain, enticement, imposing coercive measures and harassing. The most popular method is to illegally limit one's freedom. An officer's wife was found to practise Falun Gong. The military unit sent three officers to fly to that officer's hometown when he was on home leave. They brought the officer back to the army and put him under house arrest and isolation him for three months. A practitioner couple was not allowed to leave the military compound. When the practitioner challenged this illegal act, the deputy commissar quibbled by saying that soldiers were different from civilians and they should not mix with ordinary people, and that the situation that "everyone is equal before the law" did not apply to them.

Inside of the Chinese army, the mental and spiritual control of the soldiers and officers is very strict. They must hold the same views as the CCP and must not have even the slightest difference of opinion, not to mention having their own thoughts on the so-called political issue of Falun Gong. The professed principle that "one is free to retain one's own differing opinion and make their opinion known to higher authorities" is no more than a deceitful façade. A practitioner in the army said, "Falun Gong teaches the cultivation of 'Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance' and encourages people to be good people. I believe the Party and government is wrong regarding the Falun Gong issue. I keep my own opinion and will report to the authorities." However, the military unit framed him and sentenced him to two years of forced labour as a result of what he said. They suspended his salary and took back his house. Another practitioner went to Beijing to appeal for justice for Falun Dafa and was sentenced to three years of forced labour.

The Armed Police Force labour camp in Xia County, Shanxi Province once held several practitioners. They tried to force these practitioners to do slave labour but the practitioners sternly refused to comply. In order to brainwash them, the Armed Police Forces headquarters in Beijing formed a joint "reforming team," consisting of division-level officers and corresponding staff officers. They regularly drove to the labour camp to try to brainwash these practitioners and to tempt them to give in with personal advantages.

The head of the labour camp joked about it, "In this ravine, ever since the labour camp was established, we had never seen so many high ranking officers and cadres from the headquarters. Now we have the privilege to see them, thanks to Falun Gong." Because a practitioner refused to give in to the perpetrators, a political department head had no way of accomplishing his "task" and faced high pressure from his superiors. He went to the labour camp with his subordinates from thousands of miles away. He sat in front of the practitioner and called the practitioner's name and said in tears, "Let's go back to the army. I'll pay you a salary and assign you a house..."

As for those Dafa practitioners who refuse to follow the orders of the evildoers, a core group within the CCP's army resorted to collaborating with the local perpetrators to persecute Dafa practitioners. They singled out places where the persecution of Falun Dafa practitioners was the most severe, in order to cruelly torture soldier practitioners, both mentally and physically. Deputy Division Head Luo, from the Security Division of the Political Department in the Armed Police Headquarters, once said frankly that it was he who proposed to send all Dafa practitioners in the army stationed in Hebei Province, Ningxia Autonomous Region, Xinjiang Autonomous Region and Guangzhou City to the Shijiazhuang City Forced Labour Camp. The Second Team in this labour camp is the "pioneer" of the whole country in persecuting Dafa practitioners. The Second Team of the Second Division alone once detained and persecuted 400 to 500 Dafa practitioners. In this labour camp, there are five divisions altogether, all of which have detained and persecuted practitioners.

This evil group within the army spares no effort, money and resources to persecute Dafa practitioners. When they transfer practitioners from the army to civilian forced labour camps, they always dispatch an officer whose rank is that of or is equivalent to lieutenant colonel of a regiment, as well as several security officers, to send a Dafa practitioner to the labour camp by plane. Upon arrival at the local forced labour camp, they also pay a fairly large management fee to the labour camp staff. For instance, when one of the general headquarters sent a Dafa practitioner to Shijiazhuang City Forced Labour Camp, a deputy director of the political department from the general headquarters (his rank is that of a deputy division commander) first went to the headquarters in Beijing to make arrangements prior to the transfer; then, a deputy commissar from their headquarters, a deputy director from the Political Division and an officer from the Security Department together took a plane to transfer the Dafa practitioner to the forced labour camp for further persecution.

For those soldiers or military officers whose family members or relatives are Dafa practitioners, the military organisation puts them under pressure and threaten them, as well as actively collaborates with the local perpetrators to persecute their family and relatives. They are not stingy at all when it comes to mobilising manpower and spending money. For example, a soldier's wife is a Dafa practitioner; his army unit incited his wife's workplace to persecute her and colluded with the local 610 Office to deceive her family members; as a result, she was trapped into going to a brainwashing class where she suffered torture.

In order to shake Dafa practitioners' righteous belief, this evil group also threatens, intimidates, swindles, deceives, harasses and implicates their families and relatives. An army division once dispatched a cadre to go to a Dafa practitioner's home, which was thousands of miles away from where the army division was stationed. The army leader threatened and intimidated the practitioner's mother who was suffering from heart disease and high blood pressure. He said that if her son continued to refuse to be "reformed", he would be court marshalled. He also tried to force the elderly woman to make her son and daughter-in-law, who was also a Dafa practitioner, to divorce. The old woman firmly refused. Later, the practitioner heard about this and went to inquire about it. The army unit leaders flatly denied it and told him they only dispatched someone to pay a visit to his family. In the following years, the army unit constantly harassed this practitioner's family. Even after he was transferred to civilian work and had left the army unit, his army unit still kept harassing his family. They frequently called his family to ask what this practitioner's current status was. Failing to get what they wanted, they dispatched cadres from the security department to search for the whereabouts of the practitioner. As they could not find him, they called his mother again, telling her hypocritically that they would like to dispatch two soldiers to her home from thousands of miles away in order to help her with her daily life. In reality, their goal was to monitor the family. This practitioner's mother gave them a stern rebuff.

In all activities aimed at persecuting Dafa practitioners and shaking their righteous belief, the evildoing group in the military tries its best to cooperate and offer its assistance. Conversely, all Dafa practitioners' activities have encountered tremendous interference from them. A practitioner in a certain army unit was illegally sent to forced labour. In order to shake his faith and break his will, the army unit attempted to mobilise his family members from thousands of miles away to come and talk to him. They reimbursed them for all their travel expenses, hotel expenses, and even had a designated driver to help them go back and forth. Meanwhile, they completely ignored the practitioner's wife's numerous requests to visit her husband, even though she lived nearby, the reason being that the wife was also a practitioner. It was only after his wife went on a hunger strike for three days and presented strong arguments to support her requests did the army unit agree to have a security cadre accompany her to visit her husband.

Officers' and soldiers' minds in the CCP's army are deeply poisoned by the evil spirit of communism. Their spiritual shackles are even tighter and the control is even stricter than for ordinary citizens. Many people, driven by their personal interests, only train themselves to follow the orders of their supervisors. They don't even know what they are actually doing when they follow orders. They thus have become tools manipulated by the evil spirit of communism and are victims of the mind-poisoning effects of the CCP. There are some clear-headed officers and soldiers; however, they have to restrain their true feelings toward the CCP and dare not speak out.

Due to the tight information blockade and deliberate deceit, even those officers and soldiers within the same army units as those Dafa practitioners were deceived by the CCP's lies and didn't know the true situation of Falun Dafa. We need to expose the evil practices inside the CCP army in order to let the people around the world, and particularly the Chinese military officers and soldiers, know about these base crimes and the persecution taking place inside the CCP's army. We should let them know clearly who is good and who is bad, who is kind and who is evil, by exposing the evil acts in the military. In this way, military personnel will be able to make a wise decision for themselves and stop being victimised by the CCP. When the CCP is facing its end, those fortunate officers and soldiers who have made the wise decision will be able to escape the fate of being buried along with the CCP.

Note:

(1) "The 610 office" is 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.

(2) Zhuan Falun: This book comprises the principal teachings of Falun Dafa.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2005/4/3/98808.html