LAT: Chinese Dissident Tells of Abuse in Asylum

[DeepModem Mom]

Chinese Dissident Tells of Abuse in Asylum
Patients were reportedly subjected to electrical shocks, among other things. The revelations point up hospitals' role as a tool of repression.

By Mark Magnier, Times Staff Writer


BEIJING — They are known in Chinese as ankang, or "peace and health." But former inmates describe the country's police-run mental hospitals as decidedly less-than-serene places, with one recently freed political prisoner telling of sadistic nurses who performed electroshock therapy while other patients were forced to watch.

The unexpected August release and exile of political prisoner Wang Wanxing after 13 years in an asylum has shone a rare light on the communist regime's use of psychiatry as a tool of repression.

In an extended telephone interview from Frankfurt, Germany, last week, the 56-year-old Wang said he saw a political prisoner die after being force-fed while on a hunger strike.

The facility in Beijing where he was treated also made frequent use of electrified acupuncture needles, he said, alternating between high and low dosages to keep patients off balance, and fed them powerful drugs that blunted their will to resist. Wang said he developed a technique for hiding the pills in his mouth and would spit them out afterward to avoid drowsiness and other side effects.

"Of course, I don't consider myself crazy," Wang said. "I don't think they should put people in mental hospitals for political reasons. I think they did it to me because they didn't want to send me to court, which would have brought a lot of international attention."...


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-asylum9nov09,0,6517228.story?coll=la-home-world

[havocmom]

1. Look for the malAdministration to start sending detainees to China

any day now.

[NYC Liberal]

3. Why bother sending them to China?

They'd love to start doing this here under the guise of mental health "testing."

[ernstbass]

2. This is hideous