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SCMP Reporter

Son says woman was badly bruised during police beating

A Shanghai woman who has been petitioning the authorities over a property rights dispute for almost a decade was last week forcibly sent to a psychiatric hospital for the third time,  according to her son.

Police took Liu Xinjuan , 50, from  a Jingan district park on Monday morning as she met other petitioners who  planned to visit the city's National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference session, her son, Feng Liangxi , said yesterday.

Mr Feng said his mother was badly beaten by police as they detained her in  Qibao township and she was admitted to the Beiqiao Psychiatric Hospital in Mingxing district on Tuesday.

'Her cheeks were so swollen that it hurts her when you touch them,' said Mr Feng, who visited his mother on Wednesday.

'There were visible bruises on her back and her legs and she couldn't walk properly.'

Ms Liu launched her petition campaign in 1997 after a Shanghai court awarded her two of the six apartments she co-owned with her former husband, whom she divorced in 1991.

'My mother thinks the decision is unfair as she owned those properties equally with my father,' said Mr Feng, adding that his mother had been warned off taking her campaign to Beijing.

'The government said they wouldn't care if she petitioned in Shanghai, but if she went to Beijing they would have her arrested,' he added.

Ms Liu was first sent to a psychiatric hospital in March 2003 for 14 days, after being detained in the Tilanqiao Prison for five days because she visited  a petition office in Beijing earlier in the year.

She was sent back to the same hospital for eight months in June that year.

Ms Liu visited Beijing again in November and had returned to Shanghai only this month.

Mr Feng said the authorities had failed to show him medical documents to prove his mother was mentally ill. He added that they had never informed him of his mother's admission to a hospital.

'I only found out that my mother was sent to a psychiatric hospital when other petitioners told me,' he said.

US-based Human Rights Watch said Chinese police psychiatrists often applied the label 'litigation mania' to people who persistently lodged petitions.

Human rights activist Chen Xiaoming  said  psychiatrists often played a role in reining in petitioners.

Police had stepped up surveillance of petitioners and had arrested several during the six-day legislative session, he added.

Another petitioner, Fu Yuxia , who was briefly detained by the police with four family members, said more than 100 petitioners had been detained.



Petitioner sent to mental hospital