Forced medication and electroshock: ‘abuse rampant in Chinese gay conversion therapy’

When Chen Shuoli was sent to a mainland clinic last year to undergo “therapy” to convert him from gay to straight, he was forced to swallow unknown medicine, ­according to an account he gave ­Human Rights Watch.

“The nurses always asked me to open my mouth and she would use a stick to check around to make sure I actually swallowed the pills,” Chen, 35, said.

So-called conversion therapy is given to both homosexuals and bisexuals and carried out in public hospitals and private clinics,according to Human Rights Watch.

The group on Wednesday published a report based on the ­accounts of 17 interviewees, including Chen. None of them used their real names.

Such conversion therapy runs counter to the Mental Health Law adopted in 2013, under which facilities cannot admit individuals who do not suffer from a mental disease. Homosexuality was ­declassified as a mental disorder in 2001.

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Chen’s ordeal was not the worst of its kind. Zhang Zhikun, a Shenzhen-based transgender person, underwent the process in 2012, and was given electric shocks. “I was asked to sit down on a chair, with my hands both tied to the chair arms with leather strips. Then the nurse and the doctor attached pads to both of my wrists, my stomach and my temples. These pads are connected to a machine through cables,” Zhang was quoted as saying in the report.