According to Radio Free Asia (RFA), Chinese authorities are imprisoning Christians in covert, mobile “transformation” centers to force them to abandon their faith. Li Yuese, a member of a Christian “house church” in Sichuan province who requested to use a pseudonym, reported being detained for ten months in a facility operated by the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department in collaboration with state security police, following a raid on his church in 2018.
“It was a mobile facility that could just be set up in some basement somewhere,” Li said. “It was staffed by people from several different government departments.”
“It had its own (CCP) political and legal affairs committee working group, and they mainly target Christians who are members of house churches,” he said.
The Chinese Communist Party, which promotes atheism, imposes strict controls on all religious practices among its citizens. State security police and religious affairs officials often raid unofficial “house churches” that are not affiliated with the CCP-supported Three-Self Patriotic Association, though even member churches have occasionally been targeted.
Under Xi Jinping, the CCP views Christianity as a dangerous foreign influence, with party documents cautioning against the “infiltration of Western hostile forces” through religion.
Li reported being confined in a windowless room for nearly ten months, during which he endured physical beatings, verbal abuse, and severe psychological torment by staff. He eventually resorted to self-harm, throwing himself against a wall. He noted that suicidal thoughts and self-harm were common among those detained.
“I couldn’t sleep; after you’ve been in there a week, death starts to look better than staying there,” Li said. “I bashed myself against the wall to self-harm.”
“One time in there, I was groggy and tried to open my eyes, but I couldn’t,” he said.
Another Christian, who wished to remain anonymous, revealed that similar facilities are being utilized throughout China, targeting not only Protestants but also members of the underground Catholic Church and the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, which has been persecuted by authorities since 1999. A lawyer named Zhang from Hebei province mentioned that he has represented several former Catholic detainees.
“In 2013, I was asked by underground Catholics to visit Baoding,” Zhang said. “The brainwashing centers there resembled those used for Falun Gong practitioners.” Zhang recounted seeing several priests who described the conditions in Baoding. “After religious affairs officials arrested the bishops and priests, they did not press criminal charges; instead, they simply disappeared, sometimes for five, six, or even ten years. Some were eventually released after five or six years, and it was through their stories that the existence of these brainwashing centers became known.”
Zhang suspects that these “transformation” facilities have been operating across China for an extended period and that the operations in Baoding might be just a small part of a much larger network. A November 2020 report by the overseas magazine Bitter Winter, which interviewed a former detainee, detailed the varied methods of abuse in these centers, including beatings, torture, cold showers in freezing temperatures, and forcing inmates to carry heavy buckets of water around their necks.
