Chinese Regime Pays Neighbors to Inform on Meditators

Ratting on your neighbor suddenly became a lucrative side business in China.
Chinese Regime Pays Neighbors to Inform on Meditators
A man walks past a vertical poster in the city of Changchun, northeast China, calling for the prosecution of former Party leader Jiang Zemin. Such posters are being targeted by Hebei secret police in a recent directive. Epoch Times
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Reporting on your neighbor suddenly became a lucrative side business in China. The secret police force in Hebei Province recently issued a notice in the press advising that hefty rewards would be provided for citizens who informed on the religious activities of their peers—including those who signed their names to petitions or affixed their thumbprints to written protests against abuses by the police.

The notice was issued under the aegis of the Hebei Province 610 Office, whose official title is the Office for Preventing and Dealing With Heterodox Religions. The office, in fact, is a secret Communist Party agency that strictly speaking does not have a legal existence. It is the main agency in charge of the campaign to eliminate the Falun Gong spiritual practice, a traditional meditative discipline that has been targeted by Chinese authorities for 16 years.

“In order to fully mobilize the masses to inform on illegal heterodox religious activities, to actively participate in safeguarding social stability, the provincial People’s Government Office for Preventing and Dealing With Heterodox Religions has decided, beginning today, to provide awards for reports about illegal heterodox religious activities,” the notice said.

A notice proclaiming monetary rewards for those who inform against supporters and practitioners of Falun Gong was published in a Hebei newspaper on Nov. 1, 2015. (Epoch Times)
A notice proclaiming monetary rewards for those who inform against supporters and practitioners of Falun Gong was published in a Hebei newspaper on Nov. 1, 2015. Epoch Times
Matthew Robertson
Matthew Robertson
Author
Matthew Robertson is the former China news editor for The Epoch Times. He was previously a reporter for the newspaper in Washington, D.C. In 2013 he was awarded the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi award for coverage of the Chinese regime's forced organ harvesting of prisoners of conscience.
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