(Clearwisdom.org) This year, several dozen Falun Gong practitioners have been "illegally imprisoned" in the local brainwashing centers and tortured severely both physically and mentally. Ma Wenchang (current deputy director of the 610 Office in Guan County and the principal of the so-called "Legal System School" in Guan County) was the head of the mandatory sessions that defamed Falun Gong.

Since July 2008, massive numbers of practitioners have been imprisoned in the brainwashing centers. Ma Wenchang stipulated that each person had to pay 20 yuan for food each day that they were detained. The standard three meals consist of a steamed bun, vegetables in brine, and watery soup. The amount of food was only 70 percent of what a person would normally consume. The meat, eggs, and cooking oil were contaminated with chemicals and not fit for human consumption. Falun Gong practitioners were glowing and very healthy when they first arrived at the centers, but were pale and appeared seriously malnourished by the time they left. No matter how financially strapped a family might be, they still had to pay a "food" fee of 20 yuan each day.

Since the persecution of Falun Gong began on July 20, 1999, practitioner Ms. Song Fenglan from Xuxin Village in Jia Town has been arrested many times by the local police, taken to the detention center, and sent to the 610 Office brainwashing center. She suffered inhuman torture for a long time while imprisoned. She has paid large fines to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) personnel.

Her whole family has been in a very difficult situation.

Ms. Song was once tortured so severely that she exhibited signs of mental disorder. She was even forced to drink a mixture containing fertilizer that almost killed her.

This year she was imprisoned at a brainwashing center for three months. Her husband was also not at home during that time (possibly he was illegally imprisoned in a forced labor camp), so their farmland was not cultivated and they didn't have a crop to harvest this year. CCP personnel stipulated that until the practitioner writes the three statements and pays the fine, he or she cannot leave the brainwashing center. According to insiders, the fines were reduced from 2000 yuan to 500 yuan, but even so, Song Fenglan refused to pay. After a central committee and Liaocheng City 610 investigation, Guan County 610 officers escorted Ms. Song to Jinan Women's Forced Labor Camp on October 29, 2008.