Chinese Officials Rewarded 30,000 Yuan for Sending Falun Gong Practitioners to Labor Camps

Communist officials were rewarded 30,000 yuan ($USD4,700) for forcing two Falun Gong practitioners into a labor camp, an insider said. 

“Internally, the public security bureaus all have quotas [for persecuting Falun Gong practitioners]. If you ‘re-educate’ one, you get rewarded a certain amount of money; if you sentence one to jail, another amount is rewarded. The public security bureaus all have it listed on their performance boards.” 

Such boards keep track of officers’ so-called “political achievements” so that they can get rewards or promotions according to the number of arrests they make. 

China expert Ji Qing, who is based in Washington D.C., said these high dollar figures suggest the Chinese Communist Party’s persecution of Falun Gong is not supported by the Chinese public, and can only be sustained through monetary bribes.

Earlier this month, human rights activist Chen Guangcheng revealed in a video addressed to CCP leader Wen Jiabao that local authorities in his native Shangdong province spent over 60 million yuan ($9.5 million) to keep him and his family under house arrest.

  

More: The Epoch Times

China's Bo Xilai scandal revs up news media run by exiles

Among the biggest beneficiaries of the scandal are the print and broadcast operations run out of New York by Falun Gong, a spiritual movement banned by the Chinese government, which deems it a cult. It runs the newspaper Epoch Times, which carries a daily litany of unflattering stories about the Chinese government in 19 languages as well as tales of persecution of Falun Gong members.

Talk shows on the group's New Tang Dynasty Television explore the recent escape of blind dissident Chen Guangcheng and a rumor that Premier Wen Jiabao might resign during the turmoil.

"CNN made its name in the Gulf War. Al Jazeera in the 'Arab Spring.' The political changes in China this year will make us a top media player," Samuel Zhou, a vice president of New Tang Dynasty, said this month in a conference room at the network's New York headquarters. Viewership has increased at least fivefold in recent months, with at least 500,000 watching on the mainland, Zhou said.

More: L.A.Times