(Minghui.org) Ten Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province residents were arrested on August 26 and 27, 2021 for practicing Falun Gong. They were held in a brainwashing center for a month and subjected to intensive brainwashing aimed at forcing them to renounce their faith.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

The ten practitioners included Ms. Zhu Peiting, Ms. Jiang Chunya, Ms. Shen Xiaohui, Ms. Jin Hua, Ms. Ruan Ling, Ms. Zheng Aiyin, Ms. Li Caijun, Ms. Zhu Aihua, Ms. Guo Chunjuan, and Ms. Guo Chunxi.

The brainwashing center was located at the Zhifeng Vocational Skills Training School in Xiangshan County. The school has been frequently used by the Xiangshan County Police Department as its training center.

The brainwashing center was funded by the Ningbo City Political and Legal Affairs Committee, an extra-judiciary agency tasked with overseeing the persecution. The Ningbo City 610 Office, an extralegal agency created specifically to persecute Falun Gong, managed its daily operation.

Tong Weichang, head of the Ningbo City 610 Office, who often participates in brainwashing the practitioners himself, called it the “reverse brainwashing,” for the practitioners to abandon Falun Gong and re-follow the Chinese communist regime’s ideology.

The brainwashing center had three sessions each day, including morning, afternoon, and evening. In addition to Tong, Gu Liangjun and Liu, both of whom had practiced Falun Gong before but later gave it up and became specialized in transforming the practitioners, also gave lectures. Gu published a book to smear Falun Gong and he often used the book as reference in the brainwashing session.

The authorities also hired staff members from the residential committees, psychologists, and qigong experts to have frequent one-on-one sessions with the practitioners.

Every practitioner was forced to finish daily assignments, which were designed to reveal their mental state, and for the authorities to find breakthroughs to destroy their willpower. Those who refused to answer the questions were forced to sit all night without sleep.

After the brainwashing session finished on September 28, each practitioner was taken back by their respective local police stations and residential committees.

Since the onset of the persecution in 1999, the authorities in Ningbo have allocated a large amount of monetary resource and manpower to target the practitioners and smear the practice. The practitioners were subjected to constant arrests, home ransacking, detention, and torture. The authorities also forbade them from applying for passports and traveling abroad.