When Ms. Zhou was held in the Etouwan Brainwashing Centre following her arrest on October 2, 2014, the authorities ordered her work unit to provide two employees as “transformation companions,” who would monitor her around the clock. When her work unit failed to do this, the 610 Office extorted 8,000 yuan from the work unit each month for two months, which was taken out of Ms. Zhou’s wages, to pay for the people they hired to monitor her.
Ms. Zhou was arrested again in June 2016 for filing a criminal complaint against Jiang Zemin, the former head of the Chinese Communist Party who ordered the persecution in 1999. After 15 days of administrative detention, she was held at the Etouwan Brainwashing Centre for seven months, until the 2017 Chinese New Year. The authorities hired three people to monitor her and withheld 63,000 yuan from her salary to pay them (100 yuan per day for each person).