(Minghui.org) An abandoned toll station was transformed by the government of Shulan City into a brainwashing facility in which the authorities try to coerce Falun Gong practitioners to renounce their faith.
Since its opening on August 21st, 2014, nearly 100 practitioners from Shulan and neighbouring cities in Jilin Province have been held there. At present, the majority of detained practitioners are those who have filed lawsuits against former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, who initiated the persecution of Falun Gong in 1999.
Overview of the brainwashing centre
The two-story building is located near the small village of Xiaying. The gate is unmarked; the only sign identifying the facility is at the entrance.
The building has a duty rotation office, a canteen, a kitchen, a few storage rooms, and a large meeting room that can hold 20-30 people. Falun Gong practitioners taken to the centre are held individually on the second floor.
To date, the centre has conducted ten sessions, each lasting between 10 days and a month.
Brainwashing tactics
In an attempt to make the practitioners renounce their belief, various tactics are used: monitoring, restriction of movement, and intense brainwashing sessions.
Each practitioner is monitored around the clock by two individuals, who are either the practitioner's colleagues or local government employees from where they lived. They are responsible for reporting the practitioner's movements to the 6-10 Office the next morning.
Those who refuse to renounce their belief have their freedom restricted: their every movement is monitored, including eating, sleeping, and using the toilet.
Each room has a surveillance camera, bars on the windows, and a television and DVD player used to show propaganda videos.
Practitioners held in the centre are forced to attend intensive brainwashing sessions three times a day: 7:30-11:30 a.m., 1:30-5:30 p.m., and 6:30-9:30 p.m. These sessions include propaganda videos and indoctrination talks by the monitors, each of whom is paid 200 Yuan (GBP £20) a day.
Outside of the sessions, these monitors and agents from the 6-10 Office "chat" with practitioners, pinpointing their weaknesses and trying different ploys to persuade them to renounce Falun Gong.
Practitioners and their families are also threatened. For example they are told, “We are sending you to the class to save you. We won't send you to prison and you can go home if you are 'transformed.' However, if you don't 'transform' and refuse to do so, you'll eventually be sentenced. You won't survive the torture [in prison], like the death bed.”
Centre leadership
he current head of the brainwashing centre is Li Yongbo. Since Li took on the role as head of the local 6-10 Office at the end of 2013, he started pushing for the brainwashing centre in Shulan City and was actively involved in the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in Jilin Province.
Li has intensified the brainwashing efforts at the facility as of May of this year.
