Ms. Jiang Zongping Tortured in the Neijiang Brainwashing Centre in Sichuan Province

On August 26th, 2009, Jiang Zongping, a Falun Gong practitioner from Neijiang, Sichuan Province, was sent to the Neijiang Brainwashing Centre by local Chinese Communist Party (CCP) personnel. Ms. Jiang recalled the torture she endured in the brainwashing centre; the following is her own account of the events.

On August 26th, 2009, three people came to my home. They claimed that they were personnel from the Shengli Town government but did not show any identification. In talking with them, I learned that the female was named Liao Hong, and the two males' surnames were Zhong and Jiang. I told them about all my physical and mental improvements since practising Falun Gong.

When my husband came back home from work, he was allowed in only after they had investigated him. My daughter came out of her bedroom. In the presence of my husband, my daughter and me, they finally told us the real purpose of visiting me. It turned out that the government planned to organise a class, which was actually a brainwashing session to force Falun Gong practitioners to attend until they renounced their belief. They wanted my husband and me to attend. They pretended to be nice to us by saying that they would allow either of us to attend, leaving the other one to take care of our daughter. We firmly told them that we would never attend since we were not committing any crime by believing in Falun Gong. So they said to us that if we signed a guarantee statement to renounce our belief and promised that we would never go to Beijing to appeal, it was okay for us not to attend the session. We said to them: "We are very healthy as a result of practising Falun Gong. So why should we stop practising it?"

Then Huang Zongshu, one of the heads of the 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong), led fifteen or sixteen people to my home. There were five or six cars from both the local government and the police station. Some waited beside the cars, while some blocked off all the roads. Huang talked a lot of nonsense. Some people took photos of us, including my daughter. My husband called his father for help. When my father-in-law came, they pulled him aside and talked with him for a while, pretending to be nice to us. They told him that they would not charge us with anything. The government would provide us with accommodations for free. There was air-conditioning too. At the same time, they threatened that if we did not attend the session, they would do some bad things to us. My father-in-law was too scared to say anything.

However, we did not just simply give in to them. We told them that we represented no harm to our nation and society. On the other hand, we actually did good things. However, this did not change their minds at all. They called over the director of the police station, whose surname is Luo. I still did not give in. I firmly held onto a steel pipe in the courtyard and did not let them take me away. Huang Zongshu was very impatient with me, and told Luo to do something about me immediately. Thus four policemen were ordered to drag me into their car by force. They also blocked my husband from coming out. My husband shouted: "The police are arresting a good person! Come and see! The police are arresting a good person!" I was later put into a brainwashing centre, located on the campus of Xiejiaba Coal and Mining Technical School.

I was detained in the brainwashing centre for more than forty days. During those days, I was forced to watch the videos that they produced to condemn our teacher and Falun Gong. They employed all kinds of lies and dirty words to defame Falun Gong and our teacher. I was forbidden to make a single movement or practise the sitting meditation. I was closely watched through a monitoring system. One day I was sitting on the bed, and put one of my legs close to my lap. Suddenly, a security guard whose surname was Jiang ran into my room and threatened me against practising the sitting mediation by waving his electric baton in front of me. Another time some people talked nonsense in the room, so I went out of the room to breathe some fresh air. But I was yelled at and pushed back by a person called Lao Jiu. Due to the physical and mental torture, my stomach problems, which had gone away after I started practising Falun Gong, returned. It became more and more painful. However, the guards not only ignored my pain but also laughed at me. Another day they told some prisoners to bring me two wicked books and told me to read them. I refused to read them. So the prisoners read them to me. The books were full of nonsense and wicked thoughts so that even they could not stand it. They called the books complete nonsense, and they stopped reading them.

In order to show us their so-called political achievements, we were brought to Dazhou Square. Superficially, it seemed that they were holding our hands, but in reality, it was to control us. When we returned, we were told to write thought reports, or give up our faith, etc. I did not submit to their demands. For this, I was imprisoned at the brainwashing centre for over forty days.

This October, I returned from the brainwashing centre and heard that on the day of my arrest, my husband carried our 6-year-old daughter on his bike to the brainwashing centre but did not find me. In the days that followed, he came every day but was not allowed to see me even once. After the officials heard about it, they threatened him. He was not to come to the brainwashing centre again, or even anywhere near the school where the brainwashing centre is situated. Lin Feng, the deputy chief of the Municipal Public Security Bureau, shouted at him fiercely, "If I see you sitting here in the lotus position or with one palm lifted up in front of you, I'll throw you into prison as well and send your daughter into an orphanage."

Earlier, in September 2006, when I was still running my salon business, two people came in one day. They walked straight to the storage room and began ransacking the place. When they found two copies of the Falun Gong book, Zhuan Falun, they shouted, "Whose things are these? Who's the manager here?" The workers replied that the manager was not around. I was away during that time because my father had become involved in an accident and had been sent to the hospital. When my husband settled everything in the hospital and went back to the salon, they tried to take him to the Shengli Town Police Station. There were probably seven or eight policemen, but he refused to go. Five of the policemen held him by the neck and pulled him backwards, thrusting him into the car. There were many bystanders, many of whom knew that we were good citizens. They began voicing their disgust at the policemen's actions, including telling them that they might kill someone. Knowing that they were in the wrong, the police retreated, and my husband was spared. However, because of this, we could not run our salon anymore and could only live in exile without any income. When our child went to kindergarten, these thugs tried to have her lead them to us by using the excuse of "taking a family photo."

Note: The Neijiang Brainwashing Centre is know as "Chonggao School" to the public.

Brainwashing Centre personnel: Chen Deyuan, Ou Ziqi, Xiao Shibin, Guo Xiaoli, Li Ping, Zhang Zhi, Cao Yang
Wang Yuhui (female, 24 years old) Shengli Municipal Government Employee and Hu Li (female, about 25 years old) from the Dongxing District CCP School
Others: Leng Yan (female, 24-25 years old) Neijiang City Middle District Chengxi Community

Chen Yu (female, over 40 years old) Neijing City Middle District Tuanjie St. Community

Liu Huifu (female, over 60 years old) Chengxi District

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2009/12/24/214997.html