Crimes Committed at the Zhaoyuan City "Law Training Centre" in Shandong Province

The "Law Training Centre" in Zhaoyuan City, Shandong Province is a brainwashing centre used to persecute Falun Gong practitioners. Under the direct command of the Chinese Communist Party Committee of Zhaoyuan, its Political and Judiciary Committee, and the 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong), personnel there have used all kinds of base means to force Falun Gong practitioners to renounce their belief.

In addition to various forms of torture and coercive brainwashing methods, Falun Gong practitioners detained at this facility are forbidden to write to their family members, meet with them, or receive food sent by them. Those who are released are forced to report back regularly.

Practitioners who have served terms in forced labour camps or prisons are brought to the brainwashing centre before being released, so that the authorities can extort money from their family members.

The Zhaoyuan Brainwashing Centre was established in 2001 at the former address of the local government in Goushang Village, Linglong Township. Song Shuqin was the first head of the centre and was responsible for the death of Ms. Sui Songjiao. Song Shuqin's crimes were reported on the Minghui/Clearwisdom website many times. As the centre is close to a village, residents could sometimes hear practitioners being tortured. For fear of being exposed, the centre was relocated to an old office building at the north end of the village. This building has guards on duty at the entrance, and the premises are under tight police surveillance 24 hours a day. Inside the courtyard, they keep two large German Shepherds dogs and there are cameras installed on the roof and in the duty office, from which one can see everything at the entrance and inside the courtyard.

Falun Gong books, materials and other articles seized from practitioners’ homes are kept in the eastern section of the 3rd floor. Often members of the 610 Office and Domestic Security Brigade occupy the western section on the same floor. On the 2nd floor, there is a torture chamber, which has an iron chair. When they torture a Falun Gong practitioner, they tie him/her to the chair and shock him with electric batons, beat him with wooden sticks and clubs, whip him with a “rope” made with several wires twisted together, or hang him up in the air.

Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Jiang Liying died from high-voltage electrocution and other forms of torture. Others have passed out during the torture, but when they regained consciousness, they were shocked again. Other means of torture carried out at the “Law Training Centre” include:

Sitting on the iron chair for long periods of time

Tied up to a tiger bench¹

Wrapped up in a quilt

Sleep deprivation (sometimes for as long as five days)

Injection with unknown drugs

Forced to wear only thin clothes in cold weather

Getting feet pounded with heavy boots

Also on the 2nd floor are the 610 Office, the centre clinic, offices of various leaders such as deputy head Xu Jianzheng, section head Qu Tao (Qu Tao was promoted to the position of deputy head of the 610 Office in 2011), station head Gao Xuedong and deputy head of the 610 Office Du Weixian.

The ground floor is divided into eastern and western sections, and each section has a large metal gate, which is always locked. A camera is located at each end of the corridor and the officials can monitor all movement in the centre. In the western section there is a police duty office, where the main monitoring equipment is installed. To the far end of the western section is the control room, which has no windows and two layers of doors. The heating pipe in the southern corner of the room is used to hang up Falun Gong practitioners. When the doors are closed, it is completely dark, and the room is lit only with a 25-watt bulb.

A few “reformed” [forcibly renounce Falun Gong] female practitioners who had turned against Falun Gong under pressure live in the eastern section. There is a metal gate at the far end, and a control room in which two metal rings are installed in the wall to hang up practitioners. Another windowless room is used to lock practitioners in total darkness. Here, the practitioners have to use a plastic bucket as a toilet. They are usually locked up in the dark room for months at a time, causing them to completely lose their sense of time.

The head of the brainwashing centre has changed many times. From 2001 to 2006, the head was Song Shuqin, followed by Sun Qinquan, Du Weixian, Leng Qidi, and Ji Xiaodong. The current head is Li Haifeng.

Officials in the centre take turns on duty, which involves a night shift. The collaborator staff members live there on permanent basis and are rewarded with abundant food. Falun Gong practitioners are given noodles and a pickle for breakfast, boiled vegetables for lunch, and rice porridge and a pickle for dinner, and they have to pay five yuan² a day for such provisions. Some practitioners went on protest hunger strikes and were then locked up for long periods and tortured by Qu Tao, Zhao Xiuhong, Gao Xuedong, Liu Zhigang, Xu Jianzheng, and others. Practitioner Yang Wenjie went on a hunger strike for 24 days in 2010. Ji Xiaodong hired thugs to torture Yang Wenjie, instructing them to use any means as long as they did not torture Yang Wenjie to death.

Some practitioners were forced to write “repentance statements” to renounce practising Falun Gong, and the perpetrators would use this to take credit and seek rewards. If practitioners were “reformed”, the responsible guards were immediately rewarded with high bonuses.

The staff members of this centre enjoy relatively higher salaries and are promoted faster than their counterparts in other work units. From July 20th, 1999 to May 2010, as many as several hundred practitioners were arrested and sentenced to forced labour camps or prison terms by police officer Li Jianguang. He was later promoted to a position at the Xinzhuang Police Department. Song Shaochang was promoted to become the head of the local 610 Office. Ji Xiaodong worked in the centre for two years, and in April 2004, he was promoted and became deputy head of the Zhaoyuan Quarantine Centre.

For more than ten years, this centre has committed atrocious crimes against Falun Gong practitioners. We will continue to expose the brainwashing centre as more information emerges.

Note

1. "Tiger Bench": Prisoners are forced to sit on a small iron bench that is approximately 20 cm (6 inches) tall with their knees tied together. With their hands tied behind their backs or sometimes placed on their knees, they are forced to sit straight up and look straight ahead without movement for long periods of time.

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/2011/7/17/243990.html