(Minghui.org) Ms. Huang Shiqun, a well-respected kindergarten teacher in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, was arrested in December 2017, when she told someone about the Chinese Communist Party's persecution of her faith, Falun Gong, a mind-body practice based on the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.

The kindergarten head, Yuan Mang, worked with the local police and sent Ms. Huang to a brainwashing center, where she was tortured and drugged as part of the authorities’ attempts to force her to renounce her faith.

The once-outgoing woman became depressed and irritable. Her vision, hearing, and thinking also weakened. With no other choice, she had to stay in bed all day long, suffering helplessly.

Around the 2021 Chinese New Year on February 12, Ms. Huang was again harassed by officials numerous times. Her family was also repeatedly given talks and threatened by the Organization Department of Hubei Province.

A Kindhearted Teacher

Ms. Huang is a teacher of Hubei Government Agencies Third Kindergarten, a government-run school. After she began practicing Falun Gong in 1996, she strove to follow the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance both at work and in her daily life. As a result, she was respected for her kindness, open-mindedness, and work ethic.

Ms. Huang Shiqun at work

After former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Jiang Zemin launched the persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999, Ms. Huang held firm to her belief and continued telling others, including children at her school, to be honest and good citizens. Because of her belief, however, a child’s parents reported her to the police. Her employer demoted her from a class teacher to a support staff member and reduced her pay.

This setback did not shake Ms. Huang’s belief. She continued to treat others well, including the parents who reported her to the police. “They have been deceived by the CCP’s hate propaganda, so they are victims of this tragedy too,” she once said.

Although her peers often accepted monetary gifts from parents in exchange for special attention to their children, Ms. Huang always turned down the gifts, performed her work well, and treated all children the same.

In addition to taking good care of her parents and looking after her child, Ms. Huang also helped her extended family as much as she could. Given her older sister’s poor health, Ms. Huang took care of her daughter from two years old until marriage. When her husband’s nephew was left unattended--with his father hospitalized and his mother killed in an accident--Ms. Huang took the child in. The child’s grades in school improved, and so did his personality.

Brainwashing and Forced Drugging

When Ms. Huang told a pedestrian about Falun Gong on December 26, 2017, someone videotaped her and reported her to the police. Officers from Shuiguohu Police Station arrested her and took her to the Wuhan First Detention Center on the same day. Although her family was told she would be released 11 days later, the police took her directly to Qiaokou District Law Education Center on the 11th day.

Qiaokou District Legal Education Center is also known as Qiaokou Brainwashing Center and Etouwan Brainwashing Center.

According to inside information, higher officials had threatened to cancel the kindergarten’s year-end bonus after Ms. Huang’s arrest. Yuan Mang, the director of the kindergarten, thus promised to discipline her and worked with the police to send her to the brainwashing center.

During her one-month stay at the facility, Ms. Huang’s weight dropped by 15 kilograms (33 pounds). She also developed physical symptoms and nervous system problems, similar to those experienced by other Falun Gong practitioners who had been given unknown drugs. Forced drugging had been reported numerous times previously at the facility.

On her fifth day in the facility, she suddenly suffered from anxiety and panic, with uncontrollable shaking, difficulty breathing, dryness, and rapid heartbeat. She could not fall asleep and felt she could not control herself. Nevertheless, the guards and inmates still tried to force her to give up her belief and tell on other practitioners.

At least three inmates participated in her brainwashing: one person surnamed Huang took the lead, while two others (including one surnamed Wang) were assigned to watch her at all times.

After Ms. Huang returned home, her symptoms did not improve; instead, they got even worse. She had extreme pain all over her body, including every cell and bone. She often broke out in red spots, hot spots, and bruises. From time to time, she had panic attacks for no apparent reason, and she was also afraid of light and sound. Despite her fatigue, she could not fall asleep and even had difficulty sitting down. As a result, she had to pace up and down all night long. Her temper changed drastically, and the depression and irritability made her appear like a mental patient.

In early November 2018, Ms. Huang was sent to the psychiatric department of Ziyang Road Hospital. One doctor observed nervous system degeneration in her brain.

Since her discharge from the hospital, Ms. Huang has been relying on psychiatric medicine and sleeping pills to calm down. With weakened vision, hearing, and thinking, she is unable to take care of herself or go out. As a result, she can only suffer in bed all day long.

Crimes of Brainwashing Centers in Hubei

Ms. Huang’s experience is not unique. There are many similar brainwashing facilities in Wuhan City and Hubei Province. In Wuhan alone, there are over 60 such facilities run by government agencies at different levels, state-owned enterprises, companies, colleges, hospitals, hotels, and others. Among them, Qiaokou Brainwashing Center has the longest history.

Publicly labeled as legal education centers, these brainwashing centers were launched under orders from the 610 Office, a nationwide extralegal entity created by the central Communist Party leadership specifically to carry out the persecution of Falun Gong.

Torture illustration: handcuffing behind the back

The primary objective of these brainwashing centers is to force practitioners to renounce their belief in a process called “transformation.” When practitioners refused to yield, guards and inmates would take turns abusing them day and night. This includes deprivation of sleep for several days, forced standing for long periods of time, humiliation, beatings, solitary confinement, hanging by the wrists, and forced drugging.

Some practitioners detained at the Qiaokou District Brainwashing Center had noticed a suspicious taste in food adulterated with drugs. When practitioners were half-conscious, guards and inmates often forced them to renounce their belief. For practitioners who refused to “transform,” 610 Office agents often forced their employers to stop their salaries or terminate their jobs. Money was also extorted from practitioners’ families and employers in the name of covering brainwashing centers’ costs.

Torture illustration: forced injection of unknown drugs

Numerous abuses in Wuhan’s brainwashing facilities have been documented. For example, practitioners are only given a little food to make them weak, slow-acting drugs are added to food to weaken them mentally, and long-term standing, sleep deprivation, and drug injections are employed to weaken the practitioners further. Professional personnel were hired to torture practitioners. Practitioners were constantly blasted with audio propaganda at high volume. As a form of psychological abuse, practitioners were also forced to sleep on top of a portrait of Falun Gong’s founder or Falun Gong books.

For detailed examples of practitioners being abused in brainwashing facilities, please refer to previous Minghui reports on Ms. Wang Yujie, who died at age 24 in September 2011; Mr Zhang Su, who was poisoned, beaten, and threatened with forced organ harvesting; and Ms. Cui Hai, who was subjected to beatings, force-feeding, injections of unknown drugs, and the addition of unknown drugs into her food when she was held in the Hubei Province Legal Education Center in October 2012. Ms. Cui died on January 1, 2018, after five years of abuse in prison.

After the persecution of Falun Gong became more secretive in 2018, one of the facilities, Hubei Province Legal Education Center, was disbanded. But district-level facilities continued running. New facilities such as Haikou Brainwashing Center in Dongxihu District were also launched under orders from the 610 Office. In September 2018, officials sent representatives from other cities and provinces to “learn” brainwashing tactics from the Wuhan model.

Continued Harassment and Threats

Despite her poor health, Ms. Huang has often been harassed by officials from the domestic security division, 610 Office, police station, and neighborhood committee. They forced her to sign documents and took photos of her.

Already exhausted from caring for Ms. Huang due to her physical and mental condition, her family was also harassed by officials from the Organization Department of Hubei Province numerous times in the CCP’s recent “zero-out campaign” aimed at forcing every Falun Gong practitioner on the government's blacklist to renounce their faith. The pressure and harassment made her family even more stressed.

A number of practitioners in Wuhan have been arrested recently, including Ms. Li Chunlian, Ms. Wang Xianqiu, and Ms. Wang Aiqun. Ms. Zhang Wei, Associate Professor at Wuhan University of Technology, was first threatened and then arrested on April 4. She is now held at Qingling Brainwashing Center. Several other practitioners were arrested in late March, including Ms. Xiong Hanlian and Ms. Sha Zhaodi. Their whereabouts are unknown, and they are likely being held in brainwashing centers.

Hold Perpetrators Accountable

According to a news report, a 93-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard identified as Bruno D. was convicted in July 2020 with thousands of counts of being an accessory to murder. He was an SS guard at the Stutthof concentration camp between 1944 and 1945.

Similarly, a list of 9,000 agents from the 610 Office was submitted to governments in 38 countries in March. Falun Gong practitioners requested that those governments hold these human rights violators accountable with sanctions including visa restrictions and asset freezing.

For a detailed list of agencies involved in the persecution of Ms. Huang, please refer to the Chinese version of this article.

Related Report:

Preschool Teacher Sent to Brainwashing Center by Her Boss After 12 Days in Police Custody