The Abuse I Suffered at a Brainwashing Centre in China

By a female practitioner in China

Evil people in the detention centres and the labour camps brutally torture Falun Dafa practitioners, attempting to destroy the practitioners' minds. The scoundrels want practitioners to submit to their will and to betray Falun Dafa. In March 2002, some fellow practitioners and I endured both mental and physical torture in a brainwashing centre.

1. The Persecutors:

People who participated in the persecution included the leaders from housing offices, police stations, work units, "610" Offices, the Party Committee and all levels of government. Police agencies hired many people with criminal records and evil-minded former practitioners who had renounced their beliefs. These mercenaries beat and used brainwashing techniques on Falun Dafa practitioners. The hired people's monthly salaries are 1,500 Yuan and include room and board, provided by the practitioners' work units. [The average monthly salary of an urban Chinese worker is 500 Yuan.] The leaders, who I listed above, gave them an order, "For as long as it takes to achieve the goal [of forcing practitioners to give up Falun Gong], you may use any means necessary." In the brainwashing centre, when the evil-minded people wanted to torture me, other people would leave immediately and did not come back for a long time, providing sufficient time and space for the torture.

2. The Torture Methods:

1) Deceiving, Kidnapping, and Propaganda

In the beginning of March 2002, the leader of my work unit tricked me by saying, "An important person wants to talk with you." When I went to meet with the person, I was kidnapped and taken to a brainwashing centre. They did not inform my family; they did not allow anyone to communicate with me while they applied the brainwashing procedures.
The persecutors have expanded their brainwashing techniques. They used officials from work units and from different levels of government to deceive and threaten practitioners. They brought in tearful, worried family members; the persecutors also made death threats against those same family members. Both of the latter two tactics were used to emotionally blackmail practitioners. Evil-minded people, including collaborators, were brought in to forcefully brainwash practitioners. These people put on kind expressions and used ambiguous words to disrupt practitioners' normal thinking and to gain trust. However, behind the pretence of kindness were their deceptive and vicious intentions.

2) Simultaneous Physical and Mental Torture

The brainwashing centre used methods such as "surrounding attacks," "attacking in turns," and sleep deprivation to make practitioners extremely mentally disoriented and anxious. [During "surrounding attacks" and "attacking in turns," practitioners are bombarded with lies, verbal abuse and physical abuse.] To increase the mental pressure, the persecutors routinely threatened to send practitioners to detention centres or labour camps.

One day, two of the persecutors, one male and one female, suddenly turned their evil gaze on me and dragged me into a room. The man tightly squeezed my hands together while the woman beat me with all her strength. Using all the methods that they had learned at labour camps, they punched, kicked, and slapped me, beat my head, dragged my hair and slammed my head into the wall. They also forced me to squat and kneel down, beating me harder when I refused. The man boasted about how he had tortured and shoved a practitioner under a bed in a brainwashing centre. He said vulgar words to me. When he beat me that night, he tied me to a chair, held my shoulders, and sexually abused me. Later, when I was lying on the floor with blood all over my face and body, other evil people pinched my thighs, swore at me and kicked me.

The next day, they sent me to the hospital because I had lost consciousness from heavy bleeding. After I was sent back from the hospital, they still kicked and slapped me. One of them said, "If she does not renounce her belief, just add more torture. The electric batons are ready downstairs."

3) The Dictatorship

In the brainwashing centre, when a practitioner said that persecuting Falun Dafa was unjust, the persecutors shouted, "Now, only the Party's words count. There is no place for you to appeal. The Party is the law. Injustice or mistakes, we just let it be!" When a practitioner told the Party Secretary of the Bureau of Education that arbitrarily arresting and detaining people was illegal, the Party secretary, who has been collaborating with the evil replied, "Better to mistakenly arrest 1,000 people, than let one [Falun Gong practitioner] escape."
They also forced practitioners to copy the prepared "transformation statement." Capriciously changing the content, they forced their evil intentions onto Falun Dafa practitioners. They also forced the practitioners to hand over Falun Dafa books and to disclose the names of other practitioners.

4) Hiding their Crimes

Falun Dafa practitioners have no rights while in a brainwashing centre. To hide their crimes, the persecutors would not allow me to return to work or have any contact with my colleagues. I have been without a salary for seven months.
http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2002/9/19/26648.html