Chinese media revealed the identity of the newly appointed chief of a Chinese communist secret police force recently, but within hours the news was deleted from all major websites.
The unusual report took place when Xi Jinping, the Party leader, was in the United States. There are indications that for the last three years he has been marginalizing the secret Party task force, called the 610 Office, which is in charge of the persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual practice and other groups that the Communist Party considers its enemies.
It’s unclear whether the news of the recent appointment of Fu Zhenghua, the vice minister of public security, will change the institution.
A Secretive Task Force
The 610 Office is a secretive entity with sweeping and vaguely defined powers, often likened to the Chinese version of the Gestapo, the secret police of Nazi Germany. It was set up by former head of the Party Jiang Zemin on June 10, 1999 (the date from which its name is drawn) with the express purpose of carrying out the persecution of Falun Gong.
A high-level committee (The Leading Small Group for Handling the Falun Gong Problem) was also formed to oversee its work, headed up by some of the most powerful men in the country at the time.
