The central 610 Office has traditionally been headed by a high-ranking member of the CCP Politburo Standing Committee, and frequently directed other state and party organs in the anti-Falun Gong campaign.

Since 2003, the 610 Office's mission has been expanded to include targeting other religious and qigong groups deemed heretical or harmful by the Communist Party (CCP), though Falun Gong remains its main priority.

Falun Gong books were banned from further publication in July 1996, and state-run news outlets began criticizing the group as a form of "feudal superstition," whose "theistic" orientation was at odds with the official ideology and national agenda.

Jiang Zemin was reported to have been deeply angered by the event, however, and expressed concern over the fact that a number of high-ranking bureaucrats, Communist Party officials, and members of the military establishment had taken up Falun Gong.

Luo Gan was selected to helm of the office, whose mission at the time was described as studying, investigating, and developing a "unified approach...to resolve the Falun Gong problem.

[1] Nonetheless, it was authorized "to deal with central and local, party and state agencies, which were called upon to act in close coordination with that office," according to UCLA professor James Tong.

[2] On 17 June 1999, the 610 Office came under the newly created Central Leading Group for Dealing with Falun Gong, headed by Politburo Standing Committee member Li Lanqing.

Four other deputy directors of the Central Leading Group also held high-level positions in the Communist Party, including minister of the propaganda department, Ding Guangen.

[2] Journalist Ian Johnson, whose coverage of the crackdown on Falun Gong earned him a Pulitzer Prize, wrote that the job of the 610 Office was "to mobilize the country's pliant social organizations.

Under orders from the Public Security Bureau, churches, temples, mosques, newspapers, media, courts and police all quickly lined up behind the government's simple plan: to crush Falun Gong, no measures too excessive.

In rare instances where such information is available, 610 officers appeared to have been drawn from other party or state agencies (such as the Political and Legislative Committee staff or Public Security Bureaus).

[2] In order to ensure compliance with the Party's directives against Falun Gong, the 610 offices implemented a responsibility system that extended down to the grassroots levels of society.

[2][7] "This showed that, instead of creating a modern system to rule China, the government still relied on an ad hoc patchwork of edicts, orders and personal connections," wrote Johnson.

[9] In some locales, 'responsibility measures' are enacted whereby workplaces, schools, neighborhood committees and families are held accountable for monitoring and reporting on Falun Gong practitioners within their ranks.

Hao Fengjun, the former 610 officer-turned defector from Tianjin, testified that his job at the 610 Office involved collating and analyzing intelligence reports on overseas Falun Gong populations, including in the United States, Canada and Australia.

The effort was overseen by Ding Guangen in his capacity as the deputy leader of the Central Leading Group for Dealing with Falun Gong and the country's propaganda chief.

The initial media attacks contained only veiled, indirect references to Falun Gong, and their content aimed to deride "superstition" and extol the virtues of atheism.

[2] In the months following July 1999, David Ownby writes that the country's media apparatus "was churning out hundreds of articles, books, and television reports against Falun Gong.

To make the propaganda more accessible to the masses, the government published comic books, some of which compared Falun Gong's founder to Lin Biao and Adolf Hitler.

[10][9] In 2008, for instance, the central 610 Office issued a directive to engage in propaganda work intended to prevent Falun Gong from "interfering with" the Beijing Olympics.

Chinese human rights lawyers have charged that the 610 Office regularly interferes with legal cases involving Falun Gong practitioners, subverting the ability of judges to adjudicate independently.

[9] Other lawyers, including Gao Zhisheng, Guo Guoting and Wang Yajun have alleged that the 610 Office interfered with their ability to meet with Falun Gong clients or defend them in court.

In a letter to Chinese leaders in 2005, prominent human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng relayed accounts of 610 officers beating and sexually assaulting Falun Gong practitioners: "of all the true accounts of incredible violence that I have heard, of all the records of the government's inhuman torture of its own people, what has shaken me most is the routine practice on the part of the 6–10 Office and the police of assaulting women's genitals," wrote Gao.

[10][23] Defector Hao Fengjun described witnessing one of his 610 Office colleagues beating an elderly female Falun Gong practitioner with an iron bar.

[24] The 2009 report of the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Killings relayed allegations that the 610 Office was involved in the torture deaths of Falun Gong practitioners ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The central 610 Office had informed local authorities that they could use any means necessary to prevent Falun Gong practitioners from traveling to Beijing to protest the ban—an order that reportedly resulted in widespread abuse in custody.

[9] The Economist reported that 610 officers were involved in enforcing the house arrest of Chen Guangcheng, a blind human rights activist, that generated controversy as the police chief faced repercussions.

"That these officials are increasingly relying on more arbitrary, extra-legal, and personalized security forces to protect their hold on power does not only bode badly for China's human rights record.