Crimes at the Xinjin Brainwashing Centre in Sichuan Province

The Sichuan Province 610 Office and the Chengdu City 610 Office [an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong] jointly set up a brainwashing centre publicly named "Chengdu City Xinjin Caiwan Legal Education Centre." Falun Gong practitioners are locked in a three-story building in the back of an abandoned building. Women are held on the third and ground floor, men on the second floor.

24-hour Monitoring and Isolation

Surveillance cameras and listening devices are installed on the gate, the walls, hallways, stairways, washrooms and toilets. The lights are on 24-hours a day, and the movements of each practitioner can be observed.

Each practitioner is held in a room. Two "minders" watch the practitioner, who is forbidden to have any contact with other practitioners. Practitioners are required to report to officials before being given permission to use the toilet and can only leave the rooms accompanied by the "minders". The doors to the rooms are always locked, even in the scorching heat of summer, with temperatures exceeding 40 oC [104 oF].

Officials set the television sound volume to maximum in each room and leave them on from the moment the practitioners get up until past midnight. They force them to watch slanderous propaganda attacking Falun Gong. Two metal gates block access to each floor. The most vicious "minder" is assigned the position of "head of the floor" and patrols day and night. There are also two large German shepherds in the yard.

Physical abuse and mistreatment

Practitioners who refuse to cooperate with the officials are forced to clean and work in the kitchen. They are sometimes called into a room and verbally and physically attacked. Their quilts are taken away, and they are deprived of sleep. They are forced to stand inside a circle drawn by the "minders" and are forbidden restroom use. They are either given very little food or no food, and sometimes their food is laced with drugs that cause dizziness, oedema, bulging of the eyes, drowsiness, difficulty breathing, and severe chest pain, among other symptoms.

They also force-feed hunger-striking practitioners with raw eggs to cause severe diarrhoea and dehydration. Then they can take the practitioners to hospitals to further persecute them. The captors also feed the practitioners dense salt water, immediately followed by sugar water, causing vomiting.

Robbery

The brainwashing centre restricts the amount of daily necessities the practitioners can buy and charge exorbitant sums of money. They also force practitioners to purchase medications they don't need. The facility buys them from an unlicensed doctor at the Huaqiao Clinic, Huaqiao Town in Xinjin County. The receipts never state names of the medications, so the officials can charge the practitioners an arbitrary amount of money.

Cases

(1) Ms. Han Guangrong, in her 60s, came from Nanchong. She was taken to the brainwashing facility around October 2007. During the 2008 Chinese New Year, deputy head Yin Shunyao ordered floor head Yang Liuqing and the "minders" to blast the TV at maximum volume from day to night. They forced Ms. Han to sit close to the TV and look at the propaganda without blinking, made her stand for an extended time, forbade toilet access and used sleep and food deprivation in addition to verbal and physical assault. She became mentally dull after a period of persecution, and her walk became unsteady. Her hair turned almost completely white. She was covertly transferred to another facility following the May 12th, 2008 earthquake.

(2) Ms. Zhang Qiongying is in her 40s and lives near Wannianchang, Dongmen, Chengdu City. Yang Liuqing slapped her face and ears with shoe soles until she bled profusely. People heard her heart-wrenching screams at night.

(3) Mr. Liu is from Mianzhu and is in his 30s. After he went on a hunger strike to protest the persecution, Yang Liuqing and three "minders" savagely force-fed him. In the process the abusers intentionally stabbed his mouth and gums, making him bleed onto the floor.

(4) Ms. Liu Hui is 38 years old and lived near the Fuqin neighbourhood area in Chengdu City. She was held at the Chengdu Women's Prison for four years until October 11th, 2006. Then she was taken to the Xinjin Brainwashing Centre.

She resisted the centre's attempts to get her to give up her faith, despite section head Hu verbally abusing her, and staff member He Chengyan dragging and brutally beating her. She went on a hunger strike upon learning that the food was laced with poisonous substances. Yang Liuqing savagely force-fed her and injured her with a metal mouth-opening device, making her bleed onto her clothes.

Ms. Liu struggled to prevent the force-feeding, but officials repeated it once a week. She was released at the end of 2009, after having been on hunger strike on and off for more than three years.

List of persecutors:

Li Feng, brainwashing facility head, from the Chengdu City 610 Office;
Yin Shunyao, deputy head. Yin used to work at Xinjin County Court. He has instructed others to persecute Falun Gong practitioners from behind the scenes since October 2007.
Hu, brainwashing facility section head, often verbally abuses practitioners;
He Chengyan, staff member, used to be an armed police officer; a main perpetrator in beatings

"Minders": Yang Liuqing, brainwashing facility floor head, main perpetrator in persecution Wang Xiuqin, female, head "minder". Wang began as a "minder" at the brainwashing facility in 2003, keeping practitioners under her surveillance and frequently robbing them of their money.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2010/10/7/230681.html