Baoding, Hebei Province: Extra-Judicial Agency Launches Student-Facing Campaign Aimed to Defame Falun Gong

(Minghui.org) Students in Baoding City, Hebei Province, were forced to participate in an “Anti-cult Warning Education” campaign aimed at defaming Falun Gong.

The Baoding City Political and Legal Affairs Committee (PLAC) and the Board of Education launched the campaign on December 18, 2025. While the campaign did not mention Falun Gong explicitly, Falun Gong practitioners in Baoding were all clear that the campaign was targeting them. Since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started the persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999, untold numbers of practitioners have been persecuted for “using a cult to undermine law enforcement,” a standard pretext used to frame and sentence practitioners.

There are nearly 2,000 elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, and universities in Baoding and its subordinate counties. Every student in these institutions was required to attend the campaign’s opening ceremony, watch propaganda videos, share understandings of the propaganda materials, join the “anti-cult” signature drive, pledge allegiance to the CCP during a flag-raising ceremony, design anti-cult-themed bulletin boards, and participate in anti-cult knowledge contests.

K-12 students were also given propaganda materials to take home. Their parents were then sent propaganda via social media channels regularly.

The PLAC, an extra-judicial agency tasked with overseeing the persecution of Falun Gong and given power to override the judicial system, also instructed every school to institutionalize the anti-cult campaign and to turn their campuses into a steadfast bastion for anti-cult information dissemination.

Many students complained about the campaign when they were not even allowed to use the restroom while being forced to watch the propaganda videos. Even if they were sick, they were not allowed to miss school. One student commented that only an evil cult [like the CCP] would initiate such a campaign.