Leaked Document Exposes China's Secret ‘Gestapo’

The “610 Office,” one of the Chinese regime’s deadliest and most notorious agencies tasked with clamping down on dissent, exacts enormous influence within the Party and enjoys unchallenged power to persecute religious minorities, an internal document obtained by the Chinese-language Epoch Times shows.

The office, formally known as the Central Leading Group on Preventing and Dealing with Heretical Religions, is an extra-legal Party organization similar to Nazi Germany’s Gestapo, with various names as disguises in public.

It was established by former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Jiang Zemin on June 10, 1999—hence its name—for the sole purpose of carrying out the persecution of Falun Gong, a spiritual meditation practice that originated in China and has since spread to roughly 90 countries.

The practice became enormously popular—with roughly 100 million adherents in China by 1999, according to official estimates. Threatened by this number, which was greater than the number of Party members, Jiang ordered the brutal suppression of Falun Gong practitioners.