The National Security Bureau in Liaoning’s Dalian city has set quotas of arrested believers for local police stations as part of their work assessment plan.
Bitter Winter interviewed a police officer from Dalian in northeastern Liaoning Province who disclosed that police stations in the city are now evaluated also on how many people of faith they detain.
In September, the police station where the officer works received a new quarterly performance assessment plan that features particular requirements on the number of arrested believers. Issued by the National Security Bureau, such plans have been distributed to all police stations in the city, according to the officer.
The assessment is based on a 100-point evaluation system with specific scores assigned for each arrested believer depending on his or her faith. The highest scores are given to the most persecuted religious movements, such as Falun Gong or The Church of Almighty God.
For example, if a police station makes a breakthrough in a case against Falun Gong that is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Public Security, it scores 20 points. If the provincial Public Security Bureau manages the case, the score is lower – 10 points. An arrested regional leader of The Church of Almighty God will add to the station’s assessment basket 20 points; and a local church leader – half of it.
If the assigned quarterly arrest quotas are not met, the station chief faces losing his job. To fulfill the quotas, police stations distributed a list of previously arrested believers to local communities and building managers to keep an eye on such persons and report to the police if they notice suspicious activities.
The officer admitted that he is not willing to arrest innocent believers, but he fears consequences from his superiors. According to him, when a police station is failing to achieve their quota, officers often “buy” the names of arrested believers from the police stations that have produced superfluous results; the going rate for a person is 500 RMB (around 70 USD).
The officer said that, since this October, the city’s National Security Brigade, together with the police and local communities, started implementing a campaign primarily targeting the religious movements that have been put on the list of xie jiao (heterodox teachings), which will last until the end of the year. Police officers have been ordered to arrest any believer who has in possession three or more religious books and transfer such persons to the National Security Brigade for interrogation.
Reported by Piao Junying
