ZHang Po was barely a year from the school when an uncontrollable mine entered a pit in a pit in the province of Anhui, causing injuries that ended his brief Coalleuse career. Since the accident in 1999, he has experienced invalidity allowances provided by his former employer in Huainan, the city of coal of Anhui. But in 2024, Zhang was again sent to the hospital – this time in a psychiatric service.
Zhang was sectioned for 22 days in June after protesting in front of the office of his former employer, demanding an increase in his disability allowance. “I endured more than 20 days of humiliation. Zhang said he had been forced to take medication and linked to his bed for several hours a day. After three weeks in the hospital, he was sentenced to eight days of administrative detention for”Choose quarrels and cause problems».
After local media Picked up the case of Zhang, his story has become viral. Related hashtags were viewed nearly 40 meters on Weibo after his first publication in April. “If even the law cannot stop a diagnosis of mental illness, how can ordinary people turn out to be normal?” Wrote a commentator. “When power can arbitrarily define madness and non-madness, everyone will live in the fear of disappearing!”
Zhang’s case is not isolated. More than a decade after China has exceeded a revolutionary mental health law This was supposed to eliminate these abuses, victims and activists say that the practice of manslaughter remains common, a weakened civil society limiting the ability of people to defend their rights.
Zhang Youmiao, unrelated to Zhang Po, “always tries to treat” their experience of being cut in 2018 and 2019. “I always feel upside down,” explains Zhang.
In 2018, Zhang lived In Xi’an, the capital of the Shaanxi province of Central China. For years, the family of Zhang and their neighbors awaited compensation for the demolition of hundreds of houses in their urban village which were to be reconstruction.
In August 2018, Zhang joined a small demonstration before the provincial government. They were quickly arrested and Zhang was then taken to a psychiatric hospital. Their hands and feet were attached to the bed and they were forced to take medication twice a day. “I tried not to swallow these pills by hiding the medication between my teeth and my cheek and spitting it later,” recalls Zhang. Zhang says that their parents were convinced to consent to treatment after the police said that Zhang – Zhang’s gender identity identifies as non -binary – could represent a mental illness.
A ripe system for abuse
China’s mental health law, adopted in 2012, allows authorities to have “troublemakers” without the consent of the person or their loved ones. A person can be involuntarily hospitalized if he presents a risk of damage for themselves or for others. Other countries, including the United Kingdom, have similar legal provisions. But in China, many fear that the system will be mature of abuse because there are few checks and counterweights. A recent BBC Investigation have found that criticism of the Chinese Communist Party could be a reason for psychiatric diagnosis.
Huang Xuetao, a lawyer who is an expert in the treatment of sick and disabled people, says that the law should be reformed so that no one can be deprived of their rights. “The idea behind” being mentally ill “implies that it is unfair to deprive the civil rights of someone without mental illness – but acceptable if the person really has one. This state of mind supports the structural trap within the psychiatric system. Those who hold such beliefs are accomplices. Unless this belief is fundamentally difficult, she said, says.
Zhang Youmiao was detained for seven days before being released, although they were again cut later for 15 days, without the consent of their parents. The doctors had been sympathetic, with the same discreetly suggesting from Zhang that they could ask for political asylum in a foreign country. “It was something I had never heard of,” said Zhang. “I did not consider my behavior as political, I protected my rights.”
Chinese law stipulates that if a person is unintentionally hospitalized, they should have diagnosed psychiatric disease. Zhang says they have received a formal diagnosis in one or the other of their spells in the hospital. They have no hospital files from that moment, but have provided documentary evidence to support other elements of their account.
Zhang has never officially complained about their treatment. “I was afraid, I was afraid of being put in prison or a psychiatric service. I even doubted myself, I thought that maybe I was the deep cause of the problem. ”
Zhang left China in 2023 and is now asking for asylum abroad.
“Why can’t I emphasize what they did with it?”
Others asked for the responsibility of the Chinese system. More than 100 people have attempted to carry judicial affairs linked to involuntary hospitalization against hospitals, police or local governments between 2013, when the mental health law was promulgated and 2024. Little things succeed.
In 2024, Shenzhen’s lawyer Zeng Yuan continued his local public security office after being cut for four days after a dispute with local police. Zeng had broken a sign at the police station, ventilating his frustration in the face of their inability to help him contact her distant father and manage an online harassment barrier that she had received in relation to her work. Zeng lost his case, despite the fact that the Shenzhen Health Commission judged that his medical files and his behavior “have not fully supported a diagnosis of serious mental disorder”.
Zeng was represented in his legal affair. “If you directly accuse the government of violating the law, it is essentially impossible to find a lawyer in the commercial field that will represent you,” she said. The NGO of Huang, the Equity and Justice initiative, used to provide legal aid to people with civil rights complaints, often funded with the help of donations abroad. But the tightened laws on foreign financing “had an impact on our ability to make these cases,” she said.
Some victims are rather turning to the Court of Public Opinion. After Zhang Po went to the media with its history, the government of the local city said they would investigate its complaint. Zeng publishes blog articles on WeChat on his experience, which are quickly censored. But she hopes that public pressure could have an impact. “Perhaps one day in the future, the court can cancel the verdict,” explains Zeng. “Since I experienced such behavior, why can’t I highlight what they did with it? I don’t need to swallow my anger. I don’t need to be silent.”
The Chinese Ministry of Public Security and the National Health Commission could not be joined to comment.
Additional research by Jason Tzu Kuan Lu