Page "Falun Gong" Paragraph 87

Falun Gong practitioner Tang Yongjie was allegedly tortured by prison guards, who applied hot rods to his legs, in an attempt to force him to recant his beliefs.

According to James Tong, the regime aimed at both coercive dissolution of the Falun Gong denomination and " transformation " of the practitioners.

By 2000, the Party upped its campaign by sentencing " recidivist " practitioners to " re-education through labor ", in an effort to have them renounce their beliefs and " transform " their thoughts.

Terms were also arbitrarily extended by police, while some practitioners had ambiguous charges levied against them, such as " disrupting social order ", " endangering national security ", or " subverting the socialist system ".

According to Bejesky, the majority of long-term Falun Gong detainees are processed administratively through this system instead of the criminal justice system.

Upon completion of their re-education sentences, those practitioners who refused to recant were then incarcerated in " legal education centers " set up by provincial authorities to " transform minds ".