The CCP’s Vicious “Transformation” of Falun Gong Practitioners

(Minghui.org) A major part of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) persecution of Falun Gong is “transformation.” While Falun Gong practitioners strive to become better people by following the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, the CCP promotes class struggle, hatred, and brutality. In addition to forcing practitioners to renounce their faith, often through torture, officials compel practitioners whom they have brainwashed to beat and swear at other practitioners to “transform” them, too.

Fabricating Lies

To incite hatred and garner public support for its campaign against Falun Gong, the CCP staged a self-immolation at Tiananmen Square in January 2001, where people posing as Falun Gong practitioners set themselves on fire. Even though Falun Gong teachings explicitly prohibit killing and suicide, many people blindly accepted the lie as fact. The CCP is known for censoring negative news stories, and normally officials would have covered up such an event as best they could. However, for the self-immolation hoax, authorities spread the news domestically and overseas with unprecedented speed and reach. The CCP had the footage played continuously on TV and blanketed the country in propaganda through the news, education, literature, and entertainment channels.

Abusing the Legal System

The Chinese Constitution provides citizens the freedom of belief, and as such the CCP has no legal basis on which to arrest and imprison Falun Gong practitioners.

It was only after practitioners began to be arrested in July 1999 that the CCP started using pretexts like Article 300 of the Criminal Law (“using a cult organization to undermine the implementation of the law”), judicial interpretations from the Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Procuratorate, and a “decision by the National People’s Congress to punish heretical religions.” This violates the principle of nullum crimen sine lege (Latin for “no crime without law”). None of these laws explicitly address Falun Gong, and there has been no explanation of how Falun Gong practitioners “undermine the implementation of the law” as described by Article 300.

Furthermore, the legislative power belongs to the National’s People’s Congress. Therefore, the Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Procuratorate exceeded their jurisdiction by suppressing Falun Gong though judicial interpretations.

Harsh Brutality

In order to force Falun Gong practitioners to renounce their belief, the CCP has employed over a hundred torture methods from the past and present. When enticement and manipulation fail to cause a practitioner to give in, the authorities use physical and psychological torture. Torture methods are often combined to make them even more unbearable and deadly.

In one example, 610 Office agents in Linyi City of Shandong Province hired professional thugs to beat practitioners in the summer of 2000. Practitioners Ms. Zhang Suqing, her husband Mr. Zhang Ruzhong, Mr. Gao Yiming, and Ms. Zhang Yupei were kept in the basement and garage of the Lanshan District Food Factory.

Wearing dark sunglasses and dressed in black vests, the hired men entered the basement one by one in the evening, with electric batons, clubs, and flashlights. After turning off all the lights, they pointed flashlights into the practitioners’ eyes. If the victim closed their eyes because of the blinding light, the thugs beat them. They also burned practitioners’ hands with cigarette lighters, and the resulting blisters on Ms. Zhang’s hands took days to heal.

In addition, the men forced practitioners to stomp on a portrait of Master Li, the founder of Falun Dafa. When practitioners refused, they beat and kicked them, or shocked them with electric batons. “The CCP paid us money to deal with you,” one thug said. These men were reportedly paid 500 yuan for each practitioner they “transformed.”

The same year, the 610 Office in Linyi City also hired about 30 men to torture practitioners at the Lanshan Senior Center and the Lanshan Family Planning Commission. In addition to forcing practitioners to crawl on the ground and bark like dogs and other animals, they put the practitioners through physical duress in the form of “military training,” deprived them of sleep, and forced them to stand with both arms pointing forward while carrying a basin of water on the top of their head; if any water spilled, the practitioner was beaten.

The thugs also burned practitioners’ hands, pierced them with nails, and whipped them with belts while they were handcuffed to heating pipes. Meanwhile, the torturers forced these practitioners’ family members to cover their living expenses.

After Mr. Peng Chengxu was beaten and lost consciousness, he was taken to a hospital for treatment, followed by detention and torture. Ms. Zhao Fumin, another practitioner detained during this campaign, also lost consciousness multiple times.

In an especially depraved torture, the thugs used a poisonous snake to bite practitioners. When Mr. Peng resisted, the snake’s teeth broke off, but deep marks were left on his neck. Scorpions were placed on practitioners’ hands to bite them, and some were forced to sit on a floor full of scorpions. The thugs used these methods to meet “transformation” quotas.

Systematic “Transformation” Process

Over the past 26 years, the “transformation” process has become more systematic and thorough. Instead of being carried out by local government branches, it is now instituted in prisons. It has also escalated from administrative measures to judicial procedures and moved from criticism sessions in workplaces to “black jails” run by the 610 Office.

“Transformation” is also carried out in brainwashing centers. Brainwashing sessions can be held by workplaces, the local government, or the 610 Office. They can be sponsored by psychiatric hospitals, labor camps, or prisons. Some brainwashing centers associated with underground military facilities are not known to outsiders.

But regardless of the format, the “transformation” process includes surveillance and monitoring, tracking, data analysis, arrest, home ransacking, sentencing, brainwashing, intimidation by guards, deception by collaborators, being watched by inmates (when detained), being forced to sign documents stating that one will no longer practice Falun Gong, repeated harassment at home, and even death through torture or forced organ harvesting. Every aspect of such “transformation” is illegal, constituting a heinous crime at every level of government.

One example is Mr. Qian Fajun, from Zhuanggang Town in Linyi City. Because he practiced Falun Gong, he was repeatedly detained and tortured, including three labor camp detentions (2003, 2004, and 2011). The perpetrators consisted of local police officers (Xu Hengnian, Han Jincheng, Ma Zongtao), labor camp guards (Zheng Wanxin, Li Gongming, Yue Linzhen, Yang Peng), and collaborators (Wang Yunbo, Xu Fayue, Yan Huayong).

The torturers shoved Mr. Qian into a wall, chopped his neck with their hands, deprived him of sleep, beat him with rubber batons, and applied electric shocks to his sensitive body parts. In addition, Mr. Qian was handcuffed and his feet were shackled. He was denied access to the toilet, hung up for a long time, forced to sit motionless on a “small stool” for a long time, tied to a “death bed,” pricked with needles, left outdoors in freezing winter, kept in solitary confinement, and force-fed food and unknown drugs. In the end, he was injected with an unknown substance in the labor camp before he was released. Mr. Qian died soon after he returned home.

A Sinister Mindset

Criminals know their behavior is wrong, but they make excuses. This is the usual approach of CCP officials and brainwashing center staff who persecute Falun Gong practitioners. Their excuses often include, “this order came from higher officials,” “this is my job,” or, “this can help with my promotion.”

Brainwashed by the communist ideology that is filled with hatred and lies, perpetrators often comply with policies they know are morally wrong. Due to political pressure, they assume they won’t be held accountable and that the blame will fall on the CCP. Such a distorted mindset has led to the massive, reckless persecution.

Vicious Remarks

Words can reveal a person’s morals and character. When former CCP leader Jiang Zemin ordered the persecution of Falun Gong, he gave the order that “killing [practitioners] is counted as suicide” and to “directly send [the bodies] to cremation without checking identity.” CCP officials continue to follow these orders, and staff in brainwashing centers threaten, ridicule, and harm practitioners with words, accompanied with physical torture.

Zhang Shibin, the 610 Office head from Mo Banner in Inner Mongolia, arrested practitioner Mr. Yang Yuxin and his wife Ms. Zhen Haiyan on May 29, 2007. Several days later, Mr. Yang was taken to a place where he was subjected to mental and physical torture in order to force him to renounce his belief. When Mr. Yang refused, Zhang pointed at him and said fiercely, “I will have you cremated if you do not ‘transform.’”

After taking Mr. Yang back to the Mo Banner Detention Center, Zhang instructed guards and inmates to torture Mr. Yang. Mr. Yang died from the torture.

Dire Consequences

“Thought reform” is a critical component of the CCP’s political campaigns. Most of these campaigns target traditional values and replace them with the communist ideology of class struggle, hatred, brutality, and lies.

In the persecution of Falun Gong, the CCP not only physically tortures practitioners but also mentally abuses them to force them to renounce their belief in the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. In other words, the CCP transforms them from good people into bad people. This goes against the common good and against humanity, and it violates both the Chinese Constitution as well as multiple laws in China, including the Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure Law, and Administrative Law. Unless the persecution is stopped, this ongoing tragedy will cause even more catastrophic losses to China and the world.