6-10 Office
Encyclopedia
The 610 Office is an extralegal, Communist Party
-led security agency in the People’s Republic of China. It is the executive branch of the Central Leading Group on Dealing with the Falun Gong
(CLGDF), also known as the Central Leading Group on Dealing with Heretical Religions. Named for the date of its inception on June 10, 1999, the 610 Office was created with the purpose of coordinating and executing the persecution of Falun Gong
.
The central 610 Office is headed by a high-ranking member of the Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee
, and it frequently directs other state and party organs in the anti-Falun Gong campaign. Local 610 Offices are also established at provincial, district, municipal and neighborhood levels, and are estimated to number approximately 1,000 across the country.
The main functions of the 610 Offices include coordinating anti-Falun Gong propaganda, surveillance and intelligence collection, and the punishment and “reeducation” of Falun Gong adherents. The office is reportedly involved in the extrajudicial sentencing, coercive reeducation, torture, and sometimes death of Falun Gong practitioners.
Since 2003, the 610 Office’s mission has been expanded to include targeting other religious and qigong groups deemed heretical or harmful by the Communist Party (CPC), though Falun Gong remains its main priority.
practice that involves meditation, energy exercises, and a moral philosophy drawing on Buddhist tradition. The practice was introduced by Li Hongzhi
in Northeast China in the spring of 1992, towards the end of China’s “qigong boom.”
Falun Gong initially enjoyed considerable official support during the early years of its development, and amassed a following of millions. By the mid-1990s, however, Chinese authorities sought to rein in the influence of qigong practices, enacting more stringent requirements on the country’s various qigong denominations. In 1996, possibly in response to the escalating pressure to formalize ties with the party-state, Falun Gong filed to withdraw from the state-run qigong association. Following this severance of ties to the state, the group came under increasing criticism and surveillance from the country’s security apparatus and propaganda department. Falun Gong books were banned from further publication in July 1996, and state-run news outlets began criticizing the group as a form of “feudal superstition,” whose “theistic” orientation was at odds with the official ideology and national agenda.
In April 1999, an article critical of Falun Gong appeared in a magazine in Tianjin
, authored by physicist and qigong skeptic He Zuoxiu
. Falun Gong practitioners responded with a peaceful demonstration outside the newspaper’s office to request a retraction. Following days of demonstrations, riot police arrived, beating and detaining some 45 practitioners. The remaining practitioners were told that the arrest order had come from the central authorities, and that further appeals need be directed at Beijing
. On 25 April, over 10,000 Falun Gong adherents demonstrated quietly near the Zhongnanhai
government compound to request official recognition and an end to the escalating harassment against them. Luo Gan
—purported by some sources to be the brother-in-law of physicist He Zuoxiu—was the first to draw attention to the gathering crowd. Luo reportedly called Communist Party general secretary Jiang Zemin
, and demanded a decisive solution to the Falun Gong problem.
A group of five Falun Gong representatives presented their demands to then-Premier Zhu Rongji
and, apparently satisfied with his response, the group dispersed peacefully. Jiang Zemin was reported to have been deeply angered by the event, however, and expressed concern over the fact that a number of high-ranking bureaucrats, Communist Party officials, and members of the military establishment had taken up Falun Gong. That evening, Jiang disseminated a letter through Party ranks ordering that Falun Gong must be crushed.
to address the Falun Gong issue. In the meeting, Jiang described Falun Gong as a grave threat to Communist Party authority—“something unprecedented in the country since its founding 50 years ago”—and ordered the creation of a special leading group within the party’s Central Committee
to “get fully prepared for the work of disintegrating [Falun Gong].”
On 10 June, the 610 Office was formed to handle day-to-day coordination of the anti-Falun Gong campaign. Luo Gan was selected to helm of the office, whose mission at the time was described as studying, investigating, and developing a “unified approach…to resolve the Falun Gong problem” The office was not created with any legislation, and there are no provisions describing its precise mandate.
On 17 June 1999, the 610 Office came under the newly created Central Leading Group for Dealing with Falun Gong, headed by Li Lanqing
. Both Li and Luo were members of the Politburo Standing Committee, and the four other deputy directors of the Central Leading Group also held high-level positions in the Communist Party, including minister of the propaganda department.
(2007 – Present).
The practice of appointing top-ranked Party authorities to run the CLGDF and 610 Office was intended to ensure that they outranked other departmental officials. According to James Tong, the 610 Office is situated “several administrative strata” above organizations such as the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television
, Xinhua News Agency
, China Central Television
, and the News and Publications Bureau. The 610 Office plays the role of coordinating the anti-Falun Gong media coverage in the state-run press, as well influencing other party and state entities, including security agencies, in the anti-Falun Gong campaign.
Cook and Lemish speculate that the 610 Office was created outside the traditional state-based security system for several reasons: first, a number of officials within the military and security agencies were practicing Falun Gong, leading Jiang and other CPC leaders to fear that these organizations had already been quietly compromised; second, there was a need for a nimble and powerful organization to coordinate the anti-Falun Gong campaign; third, the creation of a top-level party organization sent a message down the ranks that the anti-Falun Gong campaign was a priority; finally, CPC leaders did not want the anti-Falun Gong campaign to be hindered by legal or bureaucratic restrictions, and thus established the 610 Office extra-judicially.
Soon after the creation of the central 610 Office, parallel 610 Offices were established at each administrative level wherever populations of Falun Gong practitioners were present, including the provincial, district, municipal, and sometime neighborhood levels. In some instances, 610 Offices have been established within large corporations and universities. Each office takes orders from the 610 Office one administrative level above, or from the Communist Party authorities at the same organizational level. In turn, the local 610 Offices influence the officers of other state and party bodies, such as media organizations, local public security bureaus, and courts.
The structure of the 610 Office overlaps frequently with the Communist Party’s Political and Legislative Affairs Committee (PLC). Both Luo Gan and Zhou Yongkang oversaw both the PLC and the 610 Office simultaneously. This overlap is also reflected at local levels, where the 610 Office is regularly aligned with the local PLC, sometimes even sharing physical offices.
The 610 Office’s intelligence collection efforts are bolstered through he cultivation of paid civilian informants. 610 Offices at local levels have been found to offer monetary rewards of up to 10,000 Yuan for information leading to the capture of Falun Gong practitioners, and 24-hour hotlines have been created for civilians to report on Falun Gong-related activity. In some locales, ‘responsibility measures’ are enacted whereby workplaces, schools, neighborhood committees and families are held accountable for monitoring and reporting on Falun Gong practitioners within their ranks.
In addition to domestic surveillance the 610 Office is allegedly also involved in foreign intelligence. Hao Fengjun, the former 610 Officer from Tianjin-turned defector, testified that his job at the 610 Office involved collating and analyzing intelligence reports collected on overseas Falun Gong populations, including in the United States, Canada and Australia.
The Central 610 Office also directs local 610 Offices to carry out propaganda work against Falun Gong. This includes working with local media, as well as conducting grassroots campaigns to “educate” target audiences in schools and universities, state-run enterprises, and social and commercial enterprises. In 2008, for instance, the central 610 Office issued a directive to engage in propaganda work intended to prevent Falun Gong from “interfering with” the Beijing Olympics. The campaign was referenced on government web sites in every Chinese province.
610 Offices throughout China maintain an informal network of “transformation-through-reeducation” facilities (known as “brainwashing centers” among Falun Gong practitioners, and “legal reeducation centers” in official parlance). These facilities are used specifically for ideological reprogramming of Falun Gong practitioners, whereby they are subjected to physical and mental coercion in an effort to have them renounce Falun Gong. In 2001, the central 610 Office began ordering “all neighborhood committees, state institutions and companies” to begin using the transformation facilities. No Falun Gong practitioners were to be spared, including students and the elderly. The same year, the 610 Office reportedly relayed orders that those who actively practice Falun Gong must be sent to prisons or labor camps, and those who did not renounce their belief in Falun Gong were to be socially isolated and monitored by families and employers.
In 2010, the central 610 Office initiated a three-year campaign to intensify the “transformation” of known Falun Gong practitioners. Documents from local 610 Offices across the country revealed the details of the campaign, which involved setting transformation quotas, and required local authorities to forcefully take Falun Gong practitioners into transformation-through-reeducation sessions. If they failed to recant their practice, the practitioners would be sent to labor camps.
In addition to prisons, labor camps and transformation facilities, the 610 Office can arbitrarily compel mentally healthy Falun Gong practitioners into psychiatric facilities. In 2002, it was estimated that approximately 1,000 Falun Gong adherents were being held against their will in mental hospitals, where reports of abuse were common.
Chinese human rights lawyers have charged that the 610 Office regularly interferes with legal cases involving Falun Gong practitioners, subverting the ability of judges to adjudicate independently. Attorney Jiang Tianyong has noted that cases where the defendants are Falun Gong practitioners are decided by the local 610 Offices, rather than through recourse to legal standards. In November 2008, two lawyers seeking to represent Falun Gong practitioners in Heilongjiang
noted that the presiding judge in the case was seen meeting with 610 Office agents. Other lawyers, including Gao Zhisheng
, Guo Guoting
and Wang Yajun have alleged that the 610 Office interfered with their ability to meet with Falun Gong clients or defend them in court.
Official documents support the allegation of interference by the 610 Office. In 2009, two separate documents from Jilin
province and Liaoning
Province described how legal cases against Falun Gong practitioners must be approved and/or audited by the 610 Office. The 610 Office’s organizational proximity to the CPC’s Political and Judicial Committee better enables it to exercise influence with the Supreme People’s Court and Ministry of Justice
, both at the central level and with their counterparts at local levels.
Ian Johnson of the Wall Street Journal reported in 2000 that Falun Gong practitioners were tortured to death in “transformation-through-reeducation” facilities that are run by the 610 Office. The central 610 Office informed local authorities that they could use any means necessary to prevent Falun Gong practitioners from traveling to Beijing to protest the ban—an order interpreted to mean that officials could torture or kill with impunity.
In 2008, a new set of “leading groups” appeared with the mandate of “maintaining stability.” Corresponding local offices were established in every district in major coastal cities, being tasked with “ferreting out” anti-Communist Party elements. The branch offices for Maintaining Stability overlap significantly with local 610 Offices, sometimes sharing offices, staff, and leadership.
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
-led security agency in the People’s Republic of China. It is the executive branch of the Central Leading Group on Dealing with the Falun Gong
Falun Gong
Falun Gong is a spiritual discipline first introduced in China in 1992 by its founder, Li Hongzhi, through public lectures. It combines the practice of meditation and slow-moving qigong exercises with the moral philosophy...
(CLGDF), also known as the Central Leading Group on Dealing with Heretical Religions. Named for the date of its inception on June 10, 1999, the 610 Office was created with the purpose of coordinating and executing the persecution of Falun Gong
Persecution of Falun Gong
The persecution of Falun Gong refers to the campaign initiated by the Chinese Communist Party against practitioners of Falun Gong since July 1999, aimed at eliminating the practice in the People's Republic of China...
.
The central 610 Office is headed by a high-ranking member of the Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee
Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China
The Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China is a committee consisting of the top leadership of the Communist Party of China, whose membership varies between 5 and 9 people. The inner workings of the PSC are not well known, although it is believed that decisions of the PSC are...
, and it frequently directs other state and party organs in the anti-Falun Gong campaign. Local 610 Offices are also established at provincial, district, municipal and neighborhood levels, and are estimated to number approximately 1,000 across the country.
The main functions of the 610 Offices include coordinating anti-Falun Gong propaganda, surveillance and intelligence collection, and the punishment and “reeducation” of Falun Gong adherents. The office is reportedly involved in the extrajudicial sentencing, coercive reeducation, torture, and sometimes death of Falun Gong practitioners.
Since 2003, the 610 Office’s mission has been expanded to include targeting other religious and qigong groups deemed heretical or harmful by the Communist Party (CPC), though Falun Gong remains its main priority.
Background
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a form of spiritual qigongQigong
Qigong or chi kung is a practice of aligning breath, movement, and awareness for exercise, healing, and meditation...
practice that involves meditation, energy exercises, and a moral philosophy drawing on Buddhist tradition. The practice was introduced by Li Hongzhi
Li Hongzhi
Li Hongzhi is the founder and spiritual master of Falun Gong , a "system of mind-body cultivation" in the qigong tradition. Li Hongzhi introduced Falun Gong on 13 May 1992 in Changchun, and subsequently gave lectures and taught Falun Gong exercises across China...
in Northeast China in the spring of 1992, towards the end of China’s “qigong boom.”
Falun Gong initially enjoyed considerable official support during the early years of its development, and amassed a following of millions. By the mid-1990s, however, Chinese authorities sought to rein in the influence of qigong practices, enacting more stringent requirements on the country’s various qigong denominations. In 1996, possibly in response to the escalating pressure to formalize ties with the party-state, Falun Gong filed to withdraw from the state-run qigong association. Following this severance of ties to the state, the group came under increasing criticism and surveillance from the country’s security apparatus and propaganda department. Falun Gong books were banned from further publication in July 1996, and state-run news outlets began criticizing the group as a form of “feudal superstition,” whose “theistic” orientation was at odds with the official ideology and national agenda.
In April 1999, an article critical of Falun Gong appeared in a magazine in Tianjin
Tianjin
' is a metropolis in northern China and one of the five national central cities of the People's Republic of China. It is governed as a direct-controlled municipality, one of four such designations, and is, thus, under direct administration of the central government...
, authored by physicist and qigong skeptic He Zuoxiu
He Zuoxiu
He Zuoxiu is a Chinese physicist and member of Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is known as a "crusader" against supernatural and "unscientific thinking," and became famous in China for his criticism of the spiritual movement Falun Gong and support for its nationwide ban.In China, along with Sima...
. Falun Gong practitioners responded with a peaceful demonstration outside the newspaper’s office to request a retraction. Following days of demonstrations, riot police arrived, beating and detaining some 45 practitioners. The remaining practitioners were told that the arrest order had come from the central authorities, and that further appeals need be directed at Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
. On 25 April, over 10,000 Falun Gong adherents demonstrated quietly near the Zhongnanhai
Zhongnanhai
Zhongnanhai is an area in central Beijing, China adjacent to the Forbidden City which serves as the central headquarters for the Communist Party of China and the State Council of the People's Republic of China. The term Zhongnanhai is closely linked with the central government and senior Communist...
government compound to request official recognition and an end to the escalating harassment against them. Luo Gan
Luo Gan
Luo Gan is a former member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China and former Political and Legislative Affairs Committee secretary of the People's Republic of China.-Biography:...
—purported by some sources to be the brother-in-law of physicist He Zuoxiu—was the first to draw attention to the gathering crowd. Luo reportedly called Communist Party general secretary Jiang Zemin
Jiang Zemin
Jiang Zemin is a former Chinese politician, who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China from 1989 to 2002, as President of the People's Republic of China from 1993 to 2003, and as Chairman of the Central Military Commission from 1989 to 2005...
, and demanded a decisive solution to the Falun Gong problem.
A group of five Falun Gong representatives presented their demands to then-Premier Zhu Rongji
Zhu Rongji
Zhū Róngjī is a prominent Chinese politician who served as the Mayor and Party chief in Shanghai between 1987 and 1991, before serving as Vice-Premier and then the fifth Premier of the People's Republic of China from March 1998 to March 2003.A tough administrator, his time in office saw the...
and, apparently satisfied with his response, the group dispersed peacefully. Jiang Zemin was reported to have been deeply angered by the event, however, and expressed concern over the fact that a number of high-ranking bureaucrats, Communist Party officials, and members of the military establishment had taken up Falun Gong. That evening, Jiang disseminated a letter through Party ranks ordering that Falun Gong must be crushed.
Establishment
On 7 June, 1999, Jiang Zemin convened a meeting of the PolitburoPolitburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China
The Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China is a committee consisting of the top leadership of the Communist Party of China, whose membership varies between 5 and 9 people. The inner workings of the PSC are not well known, although it is believed that decisions of the PSC are...
to address the Falun Gong issue. In the meeting, Jiang described Falun Gong as a grave threat to Communist Party authority—“something unprecedented in the country since its founding 50 years ago”—and ordered the creation of a special leading group within the party’s Central Committee
Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China is the highest authority within the Communist Party of China. Its approximately 350 members and alternates are selected once every five years by the National Party Congress....
to “get fully prepared for the work of disintegrating [Falun Gong].”
On 10 June, the 610 Office was formed to handle day-to-day coordination of the anti-Falun Gong campaign. Luo Gan was selected to helm of the office, whose mission at the time was described as studying, investigating, and developing a “unified approach…to resolve the Falun Gong problem” The office was not created with any legislation, and there are no provisions describing its precise mandate.
On 17 June 1999, the 610 Office came under the newly created Central Leading Group for Dealing with Falun Gong, headed by Li Lanqing
Li Lanqing
Li Lanqing is a prominent Chinese politician.-Biography:He is a former member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China. While in government he was First Vice-Premier. In his capacity as Vice Premier, Li was responsible for national education policy...
. Both Li and Luo were members of the Politburo Standing Committee, and the four other deputy directors of the Central Leading Group also held high-level positions in the Communist Party, including minister of the propaganda department.
Structure
The 610 Office is managed by top echelon leaders of the Communist Party of China, and the CLGDF that oversees the 610 Office has, since its inception, been helmed by a senior member of the Politburo Standing Committee, beginning with Li Lanqing (1999 – 2003), Luo Gan (2003 – 2007), and Zhou YongkangZhou Yongkang
Zhou Yongkang is a senior leader of the Communist Party of China who is currently serving as the 9th ranked member of the powerful Politburo Standing Committee, and the head of the Central Political and Legislative Committee, an organ directing central government legal policy and the legislative...
(2007 – Present).
The practice of appointing top-ranked Party authorities to run the CLGDF and 610 Office was intended to ensure that they outranked other departmental officials. According to James Tong, the 610 Office is situated “several administrative strata” above organizations such as the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television
State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television
The State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television is an executive branch under the State Council of the People's Republic of China...
, Xinhua News Agency
Xinhua News Agency
The Xinhua News Agency is the official press agency of the government of the People's Republic of China and the biggest center for collecting information and press conferences in the PRC. It is the largest news agency in the PRC, ahead of the China News Service...
, China Central Television
China Central Television
China Central Television or Chinese Central Television, commonly abbreviated as CCTV, is the major state television broadcaster in mainland China. CCTV has a network of 19 channels broadcasting different programmes and is accessible to more than one billion viewers...
, and the News and Publications Bureau. The 610 Office plays the role of coordinating the anti-Falun Gong media coverage in the state-run press, as well influencing other party and state entities, including security agencies, in the anti-Falun Gong campaign.
Cook and Lemish speculate that the 610 Office was created outside the traditional state-based security system for several reasons: first, a number of officials within the military and security agencies were practicing Falun Gong, leading Jiang and other CPC leaders to fear that these organizations had already been quietly compromised; second, there was a need for a nimble and powerful organization to coordinate the anti-Falun Gong campaign; third, the creation of a top-level party organization sent a message down the ranks that the anti-Falun Gong campaign was a priority; finally, CPC leaders did not want the anti-Falun Gong campaign to be hindered by legal or bureaucratic restrictions, and thus established the 610 Office extra-judicially.
Soon after the creation of the central 610 Office, parallel 610 Offices were established at each administrative level wherever populations of Falun Gong practitioners were present, including the provincial, district, municipal, and sometime neighborhood levels. In some instances, 610 Offices have been established within large corporations and universities. Each office takes orders from the 610 Office one administrative level above, or from the Communist Party authorities at the same organizational level. In turn, the local 610 Offices influence the officers of other state and party bodies, such as media organizations, local public security bureaus, and courts.
The structure of the 610 Office overlaps frequently with the Communist Party’s Political and Legislative Affairs Committee (PLC). Both Luo Gan and Zhou Yongkang oversaw both the PLC and the 610 Office simultaneously. This overlap is also reflected at local levels, where the 610 Office is regularly aligned with the local PLC, sometimes even sharing physical offices.
Recruitment
Relatively little is known about recruiting processes for local 610 Offices. In rare instances where such information is available, 610 officers appeared to have been drawn from other party or state agencies (such as the Political and Legislative Committee staff or Public Security Bureaus). Hao Fengjun, a defector and former officer with the 610 Office in Tianjin City, was one such officer. Hao had previously worked for the Public Security Bureau in Tianjin, and was among the officers selected to be seconded to the newly created 610 Office. According to Hao, few officers volunteered for a position in the 610 Office, so selections were made through a random draw. Some 610 Offices conduct their own recruiting efforts to bring in staff with university degrees.Surveillance and Intelligence
Surveillance of Falun Gong practitioners and intelligence collection is among the chief functions of 610 Offices. At the local levels, this may involve monitoring workplaces and residences to identify Falun Gong practitioners, making daily visits to the homes of known (or “registered”) Falun Gong practitioners, or coordinating and overseeing 24-hour monitoring of practitioners. The 610 Office does not necessarily conduct the surveillance directly; instead, it coerces local authorities to do so, and has them report at regular intervals to the 610 Office. Basic-level 610 Offices relay the intelligence they have collected up the operational chain to the 610 Office above them. In many instances, the surveillance is targeted towards Falun Gong practitioners who had previously recanted the practice while in prison or labor camps, and is intended to prevent recidivism.The 610 Office’s intelligence collection efforts are bolstered through he cultivation of paid civilian informants. 610 Offices at local levels have been found to offer monetary rewards of up to 10,000 Yuan for information leading to the capture of Falun Gong practitioners, and 24-hour hotlines have been created for civilians to report on Falun Gong-related activity. In some locales, ‘responsibility measures’ are enacted whereby workplaces, schools, neighborhood committees and families are held accountable for monitoring and reporting on Falun Gong practitioners within their ranks.
In addition to domestic surveillance the 610 Office is allegedly also involved in foreign intelligence. Hao Fengjun, the former 610 Officer from Tianjin-turned defector, testified that his job at the 610 Office involved collating and analyzing intelligence reports collected on overseas Falun Gong populations, including in the United States, Canada and Australia.
Propaganda
Propaganda is a among the core functions of the 610 Office, both at the central and local levels. The CLGDF includes high-ranking members of the Communist Party’s propaganda department, including the minister of propaganda and deputy head of the Central Leading Group on Propaganda and Ideological Work. This, coupled with the 610 Office’s organizational position above the main news and propaganda organs, gives it sufficient influence to direct the anti-Falun Gong propaganda efforts at the central level.The Central 610 Office also directs local 610 Offices to carry out propaganda work against Falun Gong. This includes working with local media, as well as conducting grassroots campaigns to “educate” target audiences in schools and universities, state-run enterprises, and social and commercial enterprises. In 2008, for instance, the central 610 Office issued a directive to engage in propaganda work intended to prevent Falun Gong from “interfering with” the Beijing Olympics. The campaign was referenced on government web sites in every Chinese province.
Reeducation and Detention
610 Offices work with local security agencies to monitor and capture Falun Gong adherents, many of whom are then sentenced administratively to reeducation-through-labor camps (RTL), or, if they continue to practice and advocate for Falun Gong, sentenced to prison. The number of Falun Gong adherents detained in China is estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands; in some facilities, Falun Gong practitioners are the majority population.610 Offices throughout China maintain an informal network of “transformation-through-reeducation” facilities (known as “brainwashing centers” among Falun Gong practitioners, and “legal reeducation centers” in official parlance). These facilities are used specifically for ideological reprogramming of Falun Gong practitioners, whereby they are subjected to physical and mental coercion in an effort to have them renounce Falun Gong. In 2001, the central 610 Office began ordering “all neighborhood committees, state institutions and companies” to begin using the transformation facilities. No Falun Gong practitioners were to be spared, including students and the elderly. The same year, the 610 Office reportedly relayed orders that those who actively practice Falun Gong must be sent to prisons or labor camps, and those who did not renounce their belief in Falun Gong were to be socially isolated and monitored by families and employers.
In 2010, the central 610 Office initiated a three-year campaign to intensify the “transformation” of known Falun Gong practitioners. Documents from local 610 Offices across the country revealed the details of the campaign, which involved setting transformation quotas, and required local authorities to forcefully take Falun Gong practitioners into transformation-through-reeducation sessions. If they failed to recant their practice, the practitioners would be sent to labor camps.
In addition to prisons, labor camps and transformation facilities, the 610 Office can arbitrarily compel mentally healthy Falun Gong practitioners into psychiatric facilities. In 2002, it was estimated that approximately 1,000 Falun Gong adherents were being held against their will in mental hospitals, where reports of abuse were common.
Interference in Legal System
The majority of detained Falun Gong practitioners are sentenced administratively to reeducation-through-labor camps, though several thousand have been condemned to longer sentences in prisons, often under the charge of “using a heretical organization to undermine the implementation of the law”—a vaguely worded provision that often carries sentences exceeding ten years.Chinese human rights lawyers have charged that the 610 Office regularly interferes with legal cases involving Falun Gong practitioners, subverting the ability of judges to adjudicate independently. Attorney Jiang Tianyong has noted that cases where the defendants are Falun Gong practitioners are decided by the local 610 Offices, rather than through recourse to legal standards. In November 2008, two lawyers seeking to represent Falun Gong practitioners in Heilongjiang
Heilongjiang
For the river known in Mandarin as Heilong Jiang, see Amur River' is a province of the People's Republic of China located in the northeastern part of the country. "Heilongjiang" literally means Black Dragon River, which is the Chinese name for the Amur. The one-character abbreviation is 黑...
noted that the presiding judge in the case was seen meeting with 610 Office agents. Other lawyers, including Gao Zhisheng
Gao Zhisheng
Gao Zhisheng is a Chinese human rights attorney and dissident known for defending activists and religious minorities and documenting alleged human rights abuses in China. Because of his work, Zhisheng has been disbarred and detained by the Chinese government several times and released...
, Guo Guoting
Guo Guoting
Guo Guoting , is a former Chinese lawyer, and chief partner of the Shanghai Tian Yi Law Firm. He was one of few lawyers who would defend dissidents and Falun Gong practitioners. He represented the imprisoned lawyer Zheng Enchong and journalist Shi Tao. Because of these activities, the Shanghai...
and Wang Yajun have alleged that the 610 Office interfered with their ability to meet with Falun Gong clients or defend them in court.
Official documents support the allegation of interference by the 610 Office. In 2009, two separate documents from Jilin
Jilin
Jilin , is a province of the People's Republic of China located in the northeastern part of the country. Jilin borders North Korea and Russia to the east, Heilongjiang to the north, Liaoning to the south, and Inner Mongolia to the west...
province and Liaoning
Liaoning
' is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the northeast of the country. Its one-character abbreviation is "辽" , a name taken from the Liao River that flows through the province. "Níng" means "peace"...
Province described how legal cases against Falun Gong practitioners must be approved and/or audited by the 610 Office. The 610 Office’s organizational proximity to the CPC’s Political and Judicial Committee better enables it to exercise influence with the Supreme People’s Court and Ministry of Justice
Ministry of Justice of the People's Republic of China
Ministry of Justice of the People's Republic of China is a ministry of the Chinese central government which is responsible for legal affairs...
, both at the central level and with their counterparts at local levels.
Allegations of Torture and Killing
Several sources of reported 610 officers as being involved in or ordering the torture of Falun Gong adherents in custody. In a letter to Chinese leaders in 2005, prominent human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng relayed accounts of 610 officers beating and sexually assaulting Falun Gong practitioners: “of all the true accounts of incredible violence that I have heard, of all the records of the government’s inhuman torture of its own people, what has shaken me most is the routine practice on the part of the 6–10 Office and the police of assaulting women’s genitals,” wrote Gao. Defector Hao Fengjun described witnessing one of his 610 Office colleagues beating an elderly female Falun Gong practitioner with an iron bar. The event helped catalyze Hao’s decision to defect to Australia. The 2009 report of the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Killings relayed allegations that the 610 Office was involved in the torture deaths of Falun Gong practitioners ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.Ian Johnson of the Wall Street Journal reported in 2000 that Falun Gong practitioners were tortured to death in “transformation-through-reeducation” facilities that are run by the 610 Office. The central 610 Office informed local authorities that they could use any means necessary to prevent Falun Gong practitioners from traveling to Beijing to protest the ban—an order interpreted to mean that officials could torture or kill with impunity.
Expanded Functions
In 2003, the name of the Central Leading Group for Dealing with Falun Gong was changed to the ’’Central Leading Group on Dealing with Heretical Religions.” The same year, its mandate was expanded to include disposing of 28 other “heretical religions” and “harmful qigong practices.” Although Falun Gong continues to be the 610 Office’s primary concern, there is evidence of local offices targeting members of other groups, some of which identify as Buddhist or Protestant denominations. This include carrying out surveillance against members, engaging in propaganda efforts, and detaining and imprisoning members.In 2008, a new set of “leading groups” appeared with the mandate of “maintaining stability.” Corresponding local offices were established in every district in major coastal cities, being tasked with “ferreting out” anti-Communist Party elements. The branch offices for Maintaining Stability overlap significantly with local 610 Offices, sometimes sharing offices, staff, and leadership.