bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

sponsorType

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Raymond Li

The family of a petitioner from Luohe, Henan, plans to sue the Daliu township government for compensation after he was locked in two psychiatric hospitals for 61/2 years without the family's knowledge.
Chang Boyang, the lawyer representing the petitioner, Xu Lindong from Daliu, said the family would also sue township officials and the two hospitals. 
Xu, who was locked up to prevent him from petitioning, enjoyed his first taste of freedom in more than six years on Sunday.
Daliu township authorities sent Xu, now in his 50s, to the Zhumadian Psychiatric Hospital in October 2003 after he was repatriated from Beijing, where he had been petitioning against the ill-treatment of one of his neighbours, a paraplegic. It was a cause he had pursued for six years, locally and in the capital.
Xu was transferred to the Luohe Psychiatric Hospital in December last year, without his family being told.
When they found out about the transfer they arranged for China Youth Daily reporters, posing as relatives, to interview Xu in hospital.
The newspaper reported on Friday that apart from being given psychiatric medication that made him dizzy all the time, Xu was tied to hospital beds 48 times and given electric shocks 54 times. 
'It felt very bad and my forehead was burned as it [the electric shock] lasted for more than an hour,' Xu said. 
Xu tried to kill himself on two occasions, after twice failing to flee the Zhumadian hospital.
Chang said Xu was not an isolated case and other petitioners had also been locked up in psychiatric hospitals to prevent them from petitioning.
He said a deputy section head from the Zhumadian hospital had told him privately that it had had no choice but to co-operate with regional governments and admit petitioners, particularly in the lead-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, when higher-level authorities put regional governments under intense pressure to stop petitioners from going to Beijing. 
Under the mainland's controversial petition system, petitioners are allowed to pass their grievances on to higher-level authorities, but lower-level authorities are often held to account if too many petitioners come forward seeking justice. 
Mainland regulations say only close relatives of the mentally ill can seek psychiatric hospital treatment for them, unless they pose a danger to society, but Xu's family did not learn of his whereabouts until July 2007. 
Chang said medical records obtained by Xu's family showed the Zhumadian hospital admitted him on October 30, 2003, but did not diagnose him until a month later, in an apparent violation of regulations, when it said he suffered from an obsessive mental disorder. 'They are  places to treat trauma and save lives but, driven by profits, hospitals are increasingly becoming an accomplice to  those in power,' Chang said. 
The Daliu township authorities covered all Xu's medical bills - between 1,300 yuan and 1,500 yuan a month - for more than six years. 
An official from the Luohe government publicity department yesterday referred media inquiries to a press release issued on Saturday that said the government had set up an interdepartmental work group to investigate the case. 
Professor Zhang Zanning, who studies public health law at Southeast University in Nanjing, said township officials were not permitted to send anyone to psychiatric hospitals and hospitals could not admit patients without the knowledge of their families. 
'As a result, both the township government and the two psychiatric hospitals could be guilty of unlawful detention,' Zhang said.



Man in mental wards for 6 years to silence him