Warring couple in China send each other to mental hospitals, shocking public and raising fears over lax rules for psychiatric admission
- Feud took sinister turn when five men abducted husband and had him committed against his will
- Case shocks social media and raises serious questions about the ease with which people can be forced into psychiatric facilities
A feuding couple in China who had each other committed to psychiatric hospitals after trading accusations of false imprisonment have shocked mainland social media.
The wife, identified in media reports as Qu Yan, and her husband as Yuan Qiang, are both from Shanxi province in northern China and separately spent short periods in care facilities last year and this year but have since been released, Dingduan News reported.
“She kept me locked up in a mental health hospital for 80 days,” Yuan told Dingduan News.
Yuan, who co-owned a company with Qu, claimed that having him committed was part of a deliberate plan by his wife. He said that after they began fighting regularly in 2021, Qu frequently told him he was emotionally unstable and needed psychiatric treatment.
Despite their disagreements, Yuan said he trusted Qu and went to a number of local hospitals and obtained multiple medical certificates showing he had been diagnosed with clinical depression.
Yuan said things escalated dramatically on the afternoon of October 10, 2022, when five men grabbed him as he was leaving his office, dragged him into a car and took him to the Xian Mental Health Center, where he was forced into a hospital gown and committed against his will.