Exposing the Chongqing City Prison Administration Bureau's Persecution of Falun Gong Practitioners

The Chongqing City Prison Administration Bureau is in charge of all the prisons in that city. It has issued many documents to its subordinate prisons involved in persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. Let's analyse one of its documents from 2002, entitled "Suggestions from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chongqing City Prison Administration Bureau Committee on How to Prepare a Fortification Fight for Educating and 'Transforming¹' Falun Gong Criminals."

In the "Recommendations" section, the prison bureau required that its prisons conduct a three-month-long "fortification fight" in the second half of 2002 and bring the "transformation" (brainwashing) rate to over 80 per cent, higher than the national average. It called for more attention to be paid to those practitioners who had worked in the CCP or branches of the government, colleges or universities, and were highly educated. The prisons were to explore new methods and means. The specific items included:

1. The municipal prison bureau established a lead group for the fortification fight of "education and 'transformation.'" The head of the group was Li Xianqi, who was also head of the prison bureau. The deputies were Wang Yongrui, head of the prison bureau Party committee, and Zhang Zuhua, deputy-head of the bureau. They were also the directors of the 610 Office. The deputy office directors were Tang Guifa, a division deputy, and Liu Wanbo, a division head. The members of the office included Yuan Songpei, Hu Jiuzhang, and Zhang Jianguo, all division deputies. All the prisons that detained Falun Gong practitioners were instructed to set up similar organisations.

2. Set up direct contact to bureau leaders for brainwashing practitioners. The head of the bureau Li Xianqi was the direct contact for Yongchuan Prison. The head of the bureau Party committee Wang Yongrui was assigned to the Fuling Prison. The deputy head of the bureau Zhang Zuhua was assigned to the Women's Prison and Chongqing Prison.

3. Set up a "sense of responsibility" in each division within the bureau for the task of "education and 'transformation'". The five divisions of the bureau--including the Education Division, Prison Administration Divisions, Prison Investigation Divisions, Prison Punishment Implementation Divisions and Prison Sanitation and Equipment Divisions--have to cooperate with the prisons and are in charge of "transforming" two or more practitioners.

4. Transfer two police officers from the New Prisoner Transporting Station. They need to be young and reliable politically, with practical experience, as well as certain ideological knowledge. Form a "fortification fight" group to enforce brainwashing with the police in the Education Section and the two newly transferred police officers.

The group was directed to study brainwashing tactics and guide the prisons in brainwashing practitioners. Those prisons where more than ten practitioners were detained had to set up similar "fortification fight" groups with at least two dedicated police officers.

The Prison Administration Bureau utilised accumulated experiences from previous political movements. In order to enforce the brainwashing of practitioners, they clearly defined and divided the work. They did not hesitate to spend large sums of money to reward those in charge.

The document said, "In order to have a successful 'fortification fight', each organizational body should sign a document of responsibility and sent it to its superiors, like a military order. For example, each prison's CCP Committee will send it to the prison administration bureau; each prison section will send it to the prison's CCP committee, which will allocate the responsibilities to specific individuals. The bureau will arrange for a car to be used specifically by those involved in the bureau's "fortification fight" group. At the same time, the bureau will take 200,000 yuan² from the education fund and set up a reward fund to encourage those work units or individuals who are outstanding in this 'fortification fight.' At the same time, record their merits in order to fully mobilise police personnel. To those who fail to achieve their 'transformation' quota, the persons in charge will give a written self-criticism to the municipal law bureau and the prison administration bureau and the associated work unit will be fined 50,000 yuan. The related persons and the work units will be criticised publicly within the prison system and will not be able to be evaluated as excellent at the annual evaluation."

The brutal tortures that happened in the Chongqing prisons are too numerous to record, such as what happened in Chongqing Women's Prison described in the article with the following link (http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2007/6/7/86529.html).

The CCP prisons used all kinds of means to try to force practitioners to give up Falun Gong. Some practitioners didn't give up their belief and were brutally tortured. Others suffered mentally after compromising their belief. As atheists, the CCP officials do not understand this. So when those who had been brainwashed stated they would cultivate Dafa again and persist in "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance," the officials were incredulous and got flustered and exasperated. Later they realised that the true "transformation" rate was actually less than 1 per cent. Nevertheless, they still continued to record "transformations" in order to achieve the goal of 80 per cent to get their rewards.

The CCP claimed to the public that many people had been "educated and 'transformed.'" They gave public reports and often used threats and enticements to make those who had been forcefully brainwashed say that they were grateful to the CCP. All these tactics were used by the CCP to show how "great, bright and righteous" they are and that the persecution was reasonable.

In fact, those who were "transformed" had forcefully been brainwashed. Later, most of them realized that their temporary compromise was wrong. They involuntarily gave in because of that evil environment. Some gave a solemn statement while still in prison or after they were released from prison, stating that they will continue to believe in "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance."

During its history, the CCP has been a master at creating lies. It says one thing but does another. In the "Recommendations," it stated that physical punishment of practitioners in prison was not permitted. However, it is common knowledge that prison guards instigate criminal inmates to beat practitioners and that some even conducted the torture personally. As the document pointed out, "isolated detention and close monitoring are allowed. If necessary, enforced methods such as using warning tools as a punishment are permitted."

Note

1. "Reform or Transform" Implementation of brainwashing and torture in order to force a practitioner to renounce Falun Gong. (Variations: "reform", "transform", "reformed", "reforming", "transformed", "transforming", and "transformation")

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.ca/mh/articles/2007/6/18/157062.html