"Stewing the Eagle", Brainwashing Classes and Resignations from the Chinese Communist Party (Part 1)

We see a proud looking eagle, perhaps just growing up. Several feet away, there is a bowl of clear water and some fresh lamb. However, its interest lies elsewhere. It tries very hard to open its wings and return to the blue sky. But just when its feet leave the ground, the thin shackle on its leg clangs and rapidly pulls taut, pulling it back to the ground immediately. The eagle pecks at the steel shackle with its beak, howling fiercely. After futilely struggling again and again, its blood drips out of its mouth and drops into the yellow soil at its feet. However, its eyes are focused on the place far away. At this moment, its greatest wish is to regain it's freedom and roam in the blue sky.

It gradually turns dark. After a day of struggling, the eagle is hungry, thirsty and tired. But whenever it is about to close its eyes and rest, the hunter shakes the rope that the eagle is tied to or causes the hunting dog to bark wildly. When the eagle can no longer hold itself up and falls down, the hunter splashes it with cold water. After a long night of start and stops, weariness, hunger and thirst, another day awaits. Although the eagle is still unyielding, its body is gradually exhausted. After so many days, it looks like the suffering is never going to end. When weariness, hunger and despair defeats the eagle's will, the hunter appears, carrying some clear water and fresh lamb. The eagle no longer rejects it. It even feels grateful and starts to wolf the lamb down. The hunter gently combs the eagle's feathers with his finger, and the eagle even half closes its eyes and starts to enjoy it. After three days of painful and helpless suffering, it appears that the eagle thinks of the hunter as the benefactor who "saved" it from the suffering.

When people see the eagle again, it is squatting on the hunter's shoulder, following the hunter's instruction to hunt. Although there are no shackles on its legs, its spirit has been locked forever and it will never leave the hunter. Each time it captures something, the hunter will throw the entrails to it, and it will be even more grateful to the hunter's "generosity". It completely forgets that it used to shoot into the clouds like a sharp arrow and soar in the sky freely. That free soul has died.

This is called "stewing the eagle." However the first time I heard the term, this cruel scenario actually took place with a human being. The reason this was done was to "transform" a person's thoughts and brainwash him.

At the north end of Xinhua Road, Kuiwen section, Weifang city, Shandong province, the Weifang city 610 Office¹ set up a so-called "Legal Education Training Centre". Falun Gong practitioner Zhang Liang was arrested and sent to the centre because he refused to give up his belief. Fu Jinbin, the person in charge of the centre, used all kinds of brutal tortures to "transform" his thoughts. "Stewing the eagle" is one of Fu Jinbin's favourite methods. Zhang Liang was forced to stand 24 hours per day for more than a month without any rest and sleep. The centre also appointed a group of people to yell and shout at him one by one, beating and kicking Zhang Liang again and again. When Zhang Liang became sleepy, they poured water down his shirt. After one month, Zhang Liang was tortured to the point where he was incoherent and could not understand people's words. His legs were badly swollen. His skin became transparent, pale and broke open easily. His calves were as wide as his thighs and his feet were so swollen that it became very hard to put shoes on. Finally, he became nearly unable to stand and walk. Countless times, he bumped into the walls and fell down.

While using the torture of "stewing the eagle", the centre also used the method of intimidation and temptation to ask Zhang Liang's father, grandmother and aunt to persuade him. The centre even forced Zhang Liang's 80-year-old grandmother to kneel down to beg him. Zhang Liang lost his personal freedom without going through any legal proceedings. The 610 Office and the "Law Education Training Centre," the very people who took him away from his family, tried to persuade Zhang Liang to give up his belief using the excuse of "family duty." They used the "lamb" and "clear water" to tempt him and told him that if he wrote the so-called "statement of repentance" and "exposing and criticising material", he could be released in advance, be reunited with his family and get some much-needed sleep.

This brainwashing centre started to persecute Falun Gong practitioners in October of 2000. During the past five years, untold numbers of innocent Falun Gong practitioners have been tortured here. According to information breaking through the information blockade and arriving overseas, it has been verified that in Weifang city, more than 30 Falun Gong practitioners were tortured to death at similar detention centres, labour camps and brainwash centres.

This sinister entity even names itself "the Legal Education Training Centre," a true outrage. But in China today, this is not an uncommon sight. In 2005, Han Huiyue, the team leader of the second team at the Changle Labour Camp, Weifang city, was commended as being one of the "ten outstanding young guards".

Han Huiyue invented an entire set of methods for "stewing the eagle". When the practitioners who were forced to be wake up in the night fell asleep, Han told the guards to use their shoes to hit the practitioners' head, pinch their ribs, and knock their heads with the knuckles. They also stabbed their nostrils with a plastic, silk or paper scroll, which made their nose bleed. Then the guards wiped off the practitioners' blood and continued to stab them. They also used a high-pitch horn to loudly slander Falun Gong at the practitioners' ears. Han Huiyue also used an electric baton to beat Falun Gong practitioners and publicly threatened that "no one would be liable for beating Falun Dafa practitioners to death". In the beginning of 2001, Han once instigated guards to beat Falun Gong practitioner Liu Shuchun from Changyi City to death in the restroom. Liu's body looked deep dark purple when he died.

It's not accidental that on November 30th, 2004, Sun Shaomin, the chief of the Hulu Police Office, Daqing City was named "outstanding young guard" by the Heilongjiang Province Communist Youth League Committee. In fact, according to the information from China, 13 practitioners were verified to have been tortured to death under Sun Shaomin's direct orders.

Those tortured to death include: Wang Guofang, female, 42 years old; Zuo Guoqing, male, 37 years old; Lu Bingsen, male, 39 years old; Hua Haiyu, male, 59 years old; Liu Tongling, female, 53 years old; Wang Kemin, male, 38 years old; Yu Yongquan, male, 45 years old; He Huajiang, male, 42 years old; Niu Huaiyi, male; Li Xiaorong, male, 41 years old; Wang Bin, male, 47 years old; Zhang Tieyan, female, 29 years old; Gao Shuqin, female, 51 years old.

(To be continued)