Exposing the Crimes at Taojianling Brainwashing Centre in Hanyang, Wuhan City, Hubei Province

The Taojianling Brainwashing Centre in Hanyang District, Wuhan City was established in 2000 after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started persecuting Falun Gong in 1999. The brainwashing centre was originally located in the Hanyang First Detention Centre. In 2002, the detention centre expanded, so the brainwashing centre and detention centre were subsequently combined. In January 2000, the communist regime was fearful of practitioners appealing for justice in the face the persecution, so they detained determined practitioners and assistants in this dark place.

When we were sent to this evil place, the cells were very damp. There was no electricity. We were deprived of sleep and were forced to stand for long periods of time. We ate mildewed rice and rotten cabbage with sand in it. Later, due to the publicity from protesting practitioners, they improved the quality of food a little bit. Each practitioner was confined in a single cell. Sleeping, eating, and relieving themselves all took place in the same cell. Practitioners were never let out. We were not allowed to talk to one another.

In 2000, Zhang, Director of the Judicial Bureau, was appointed as the head of the brainwashing centre. The staff brutally beat and kicked practitioners. A practitioner with the last name of Zhang was brutally tortured and forced to lie in bed for several days. After 6 months of brutal torture, two other practitioners suffered a mental collapse, one of them had the last name of Liao, the other one was Xu Guiping.

The perpetrators hung another practitioner up at the front door of the centre for practising the Falun Gong exercises. It was in July 2000. Due to the hot weather and physical pain, this practitioner passed out and was sent to the emergency room of Shilipu Hospital.

In 2001, Tang Zongtao, Chief Justice of the Hanyang Court took over as Head of the Brainwashing Centre. He openly instigated seven to eight male thugs to force-feed a practitioner who went on hunger strike to protest the persecution. They used big fire tongs to pry open the practitioner's teeth. The practitioner was very weak after being on a hunger strike for 35 - 36 days. The perpetrators slapped him first, then stuffed his nose with 4 bamboo sticks, pushed down his head hard against the floor, tied him up with ropes and held him down tightly to force-feed him.

Prior to 2002, the Hanyang Brainwashing Centre was controlled by the people from police, Justice Department and court. After 2002, the centre was solely controlled by the 610 Office¹. The persecution then intensified. If practitioners refused to be "reformed²," they would not be released, or they would be sent to forced labour camps with extended sentences.

Xu Bikang, Head of the Hanyang District 610 Office, has been overseeing the Hanyang Brainwashing Centre since 2002. All districts have their 610 Office heads who oversee various brainwashing centres. The Hanyang Brainwashing Centre also learned the persecution tactics from other regions. They adopted the approach of having two persons watch one practitioner. The so-called "eating together, living together, sleeping together" is in fact interfering with a practitioner's normal life. With the two persons always around, it became hard for practitioners to practise Falun Gong. In order to improve their "reform rate," the brainwashing centre officials chose to abuse practitioners individually. If practitioners refused to be "reformed," they would be deprived of sleep for up to 15 days, which made the practitioners very disoriented and their minds unclear. They often collapsed when forced to stand. Some suffered from high blood pressure, while others suffered from heart disease.

Many practitioners whose terms were up in forced labour camps were transferred to the Hanyang Brainwashing Centre. Former practitioners Zhang Quanhao and Ding renounced Falun Gong under intense pressure after they were transferred there. They identified with the prison officials and assisted them in persecuting practitioners.

In 2003, Huang Liping, from the Procuratorate, became the Head of the Brainwashing Centre. She did not allow practitioners who refused to be "reformed" to meet with their families. She did not allow families to bring changes of clothes or to drop off daily necessities to the practitioners. This even included families who came from far away. They even denied the requests of a seventy or eighty-year-old grandmother trying to visit her grandson. Even the unscrupulous monitors said that Huang was too brutal. Another persecution tactic involved graffiti smeared on the walls of the Centre. There were slogans all over the place defaming and slandering Falun Gong. After practitioners tore them down, they simply detained them longer and continued to slander Falun Gong.

Ye Zhengxin became the Head of the Brainwashing Centre in 2004. He used to be an official with the Hanyang District Party Committee. He was responsible for flood prevention. He used embezzled flood prevention money to build a house for himself. He had an affair with a woman with last name of Yu in the brainwashing centre. He ordered many practitioners to stand for long periods and deprived them of sleep. In order to persecute practitioners around the clock, they spent money to hire monitors solely to watch practitioners. The monitors were paid 500 yuan³. When they tortured practitioners, they got 10 yuan more every day. It might have increased by now. The monitors came over any time they were called upon. Later, due to practitioners' righteous efforts the brainwashing centre had to stop the operation temporarily.

However, due to the Beijing Olympics, CCP perpetrators arrested many more practitioners. The Hanyang Brainwashing Centre started up again. Every day, they forced practitioners to watch videos defaming Falun Gong, and to write reports praising the Party and slandering Falun Gong and Falun Gong's founder, Master Li.

Note

1. "The 610 office" is an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems.

2. "Reform or Transform" Implementation of brainwashing and torture in order to force a practitioner to renounce Falun Gong. (Variations: "reform", "transform", "reformed", "reforming", "transformed", "transforming", and "transformation")

3. "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.cc/mh/articles/2008/9/16/186006.html