While the practice of deprogramming or “faith breaking,” where members of minority religions are confined and submitted to heavy psychological indoctrination and various forms of violence, has been reported to be a common practice in China, these techniques are now being conducted in cooperation with an official religious group, Dong Deming reports in the newsletter Bitter Winter (September 2). Deprogramming is illegal in most democratic countries, but it is routinely practiced in China and has taken place in different facilities controlled by the state. But Deming reports on how pro-government Buddhist clergy are now becoming involved, describing a recent video showing a Falun Gong practitioner from Chengde, a prefecture-level city in Hebei province, detained by the police. The officers arrange for his deprogramming with a Buddhist abbot who is a leader of the China Buddhist Association, the body established by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to control Buddhists in the country. The video even has a few scenes showing the deprogramming, before the former Falun Gong practitioner is presented as having become best friends with the police officers who arrested him, and who are now helping him set up a small business and arrange care for his old parents. “The process shows the strict cooperation and complicity between China Buddhist Association personnel and the police. It seems that deprogramming is ‘sub-contracted’ to the government-controlled Buddhist agency, while remaining under the control of public security,” Deming writes. He concludes that it is yet another way in which the China Buddhist Association supports the CCP and participates in its human rights violations.
(Bitter Winter, https://bitterwinter.org/china-buddhist-association-works-with-police-to-deprogram-falun-gong-practitioners/)