Crimes Perpetrated Against Falun Gong Practitioners at the Brainwashing Centre in Langfang City, Hebei Province

The brainwashing centre in Langfang City of Hebei Province has detained thousands of Falun Gong practitioners since 2000. The brainwashing centre has now been combined with a detention camp. It is called the "legal education centre" to the outside world. It is, in fact, a place where laws are broken and Dafa practitioners are brutally persecuted.

During the past several years, practitioners who were sent there by force had their personal freedoms taken away. The brainwashing centre flooded them with twisted ideology and humiliated them. Other persecution methods included long periods of forced standing and sleep deprivation. Those who persisted in practising Falun Gong were treated more harshly and threatened with being sent to forced labour camps. The practitioners were beaten and verbally abused, and guards flicked the practitioners' eyeballs to keep them from sleeping. They also used toxic oral and intravenous drugs that damaged the nervous system. When practitioners went on hunger strikes to protest the persecution, they were force-fed with a tube inserted into their stomachs. The prison personnel also put drugs into the food and drinking water when they carried out this brutal torture. They sometimes administered injections into the armpit. When small doses were used, the practitioners would become disoriented. Large doses of such drugs, on the other hand, would cause severe pain. The practitioners who received this kind of persecution often experienced headaches, dizziness, and disorientation. More serious symptoms included memory loss, a hard tongue, blackouts and severe headaches. Some felt extremely lethargic, while others could not fall asleep. This type of torture caused tremendous suffering for the practitioners, and some were hospitalised for emergency treatment.

The crimes committed at the brainwashing centre are not all so obvious, as part of the brainwashing process involves false kindness from some of the guards and administrators. The ultimate purpose of these displays is to persuade practitioners to give up their belief in "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance." If practitioners refuse, they would then begin a systematic process to increase the pressure, including various forms of psychological abuses. Some people were pushed to the point of mental collapse.

Han Zhiguang and Zhao Lihua, heads of the Langfang City 610 Office¹, have brutally persecuted Falun Gong practitioners since July 2000. During the past few years, they have been promoted several times for their roles in persecuting Falun Gong. In addition, they have reaped huge financial gains from the persecution. Every time they were able to force one practitioner to give up Falun Gong, they received 2,000-10,000 yuan² in bonuses. The practitioner's workplace or the practitioner also had to pay thousands in fines. In the past several years, thousands of practitioners have been sent through this brainwashing centre, so the amount of money involved is huge. For example, the Fangzheng Computer Corporation in the Hongchang Electronic Plaza was funded by Zhao Lihua. 610 Office agents have been seen arguing over how to divide their spoils, while practitioners are torn away from their families and subjected to brutal persecution.

Langfang practitioner Wan Hongxia was arrested and sent to the brainwashing centre for telling people the facts about Falun Gong and the persecution. She persisted in her belief and protested the persecution by holding a hunger strike. After a few days of being subjected to severe abuse, she was partially paralysed and unable to take care of her own daily needs. She was sent to a detention centre, but was rejected due to her terrible condition. However, the 610 Office agents forced the detention centre to accept her. On August 16th, Wan Hongxia was carried into a courtroom, still half-paralysed, and was unlawfully sentenced to three years in jail.

Head of the 610 Office in Langfang: Han Zhiguang
Home telephone: 86-316-2128956, 86-316-6833781, 86-316-6837916
Cellular phone: 86-13832626952
Office telephone: 86-316-2015211 ext. 6162

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. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2007/5/30/155903.html