Religious dissidents are being brainwashed. Hamish McDonald reports from
Beijing.
Chinese security authorities have set up special "brainwashing
centres" across the country aimed at stubborn followers of the banned Falun
Gong spiritual movement, recent inmates have told The Age.
The special institutions,
formally called "law schools", apply intensive pressure involving prolonged
interrogation, bombardment with video and audio propaganda, sleep deprivation
and physical torture, the inmates say.
A detailed account of the new deconversion
tactic has been given by Tang Yiwen, a Falun Gong member seized in a street in
the southern city Guangzhou and held in the "Guangzhou City Law School"
for three weeks this year. He was backed by another recent inmate interviewed
by The Age.
According to Falun Gong members in China, similar institutions
have been set up in all seven districts of sprawling Guangzhou. They are believed
to be replicated around China by local branches of the "6-10 Office",
the special section of the Ministry of Public Security ordered to wipe out Falun
Gong.
Ms Tang, 37, a professional Japanese interpreter, had earlier
undergone forcible attempts at conversion during nearly three years in the nearby
Chatou women’s labour camp, which left her crippled in one leg. She describes
the interrogations as "a glimpse of hell", and has written to Prime
Minister John Howard, seeking help to join her sister in Australia.
But
Australian officials say her case is not being pursued, although representations
had been made during her detention.
According to the award-winning
Melbourne-based writer Ouyang Yu, whose brother Ming died last year from ill-treatment
during detention for his Falun Gong activities, the persecution has attracted
little interest in human rights circles in Australia. "Over here you meet
up with a wall of utter coldness, a wall of ice," he said in a telephone
interview. "They say other cases are more important."
Ouyang
Ming, a former university lecturer dismissed for his beliefs, died last August
after being released from his latest spell of "reform through labour"
for persistently handing out Falun Gong leaflets. "He was just a bag of bones,"
his brother said. "They just wanted him to die out of the prison instead
of inside so they were not to blame."
The crackdown against Falun Gong
is described by one specialist, Nicholas Becquelin of the respected New York-based
group Human Rights in China, as the largest systematic human rights abuse in the
country since the 1989 bloodbath of Tiananmen democracy activists.
A new
report by Falun Gong this week said 1047 of the movement’s followers had died
since the official crackdown started in July 1999, involving the detention of
tens of thousands.
The survey highlights the death of several children who
were caught up in the detention of Falun Gong members. Some China watchers are
hoping that last month’s retirement of Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, who took personal
affront at a massive Falun Gong demonstration outside his residence in 1999 and
ordered the crackdown, will provide a face-saving chance for Beijing to ease off.
But
Mr Ouyang, not a Falun Gong follower, sees no change in the attitude of Mr Jiang’s
successor, President Hu Jintao, and, given the multibillion-dollar resource contracts
now flowing from China, he doesn’t see action likely from the Australian Government
calling on Beijing to stop killing people for their beliefs.
"In the
face of that kind of lucrative gain, everybody shuts up," he said.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/15/1097784047117.html?oneclick=&oneclick=true
Posting
date: 16/Oct/2004
Original article date: 16/Oct/2004
Category: Media Report
