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Gu Xianghong languishes in an “Ankang,” a special Chinese psychiatric hospital run by police, Radio Free Asia reports.  In a video quoted by RFA, Gu says, “They put electrodes on my temples and they were burned black.  They handcuffed me and chained my feet . . . My [entire family] and home have been ruined by the village government.”  They also subjected her to injections against her will.  According to the report, Gu has been jailed nine times in the Ankang since 1992.

Leaders of a Hubei-based human rights group, Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch, videotaped Gu from inside the Ankang and smuggled the video to Radio Free Asia.  The Rights group is mounting a campaign called “Mental Hospitals SOS,” to call attention to official psychiatric abuse in China.

Why has Gu repeatedly been jailed and tortured in an Ankang?  She sued the local government over “family planning issues.”

This is another example of the fact that the coercive enforcement of China’s One Child Policy causes more violence against women and girls than any other official policy on earth.  This violence takes the form of forced abortion, forced sterilization, infanticide, gendercide, sexual slavery and female suicide.  Now add to this grim list:  psychiatric torture for those who dare to challenge family planning abuses.

Gu is not the first person the Chinese Communist Party has jailed to silence them on family planning abuses.  Blind activist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Chen Guangcheng exposed the fact that there were 130,000 forced abortions and sterilizations in Linyi County, Shandong Province, in 2005.  For this, he served a four year, three month jail sentence, during which time he was severely beaten and denied medical treatment.  He now remains under house arrest. To read a dozen expert reports documenting atrocities committed in the name of the One Child Policy, submitted in connection with the Congressional hearing on the One Child Policy of November 10, 2009, click here:  http://www.womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org/index.php?nav=congressional

According to reports by Human Rights Watch and others, in China, psychiatric abuse is shockingly common against dissidents, who are jailed and silenced under the guise of psychiatric treatment.  In one well-known case, Wang Wanxing was held in an Ankang for 13 years, for staging a brief, one-man pro-democracy protest on Tiananmen Square on the third anniversary of the massacre there.  He was released unexpectedly in 2005 and sent to Germany, where he was evaluated by a team of psychiatric experts, who found no mental disorder.  Wang told Human Rights Watch about the conditions he had endured.   He stated, for example, that he had been forced to watch staff members administer “electric acupuncture treatments” in which the current used was excruciating.  One inmate died of a heart attack during such a “treatment.”

According to a recent Epoch Times article, the Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group submitted a report to the United Nations, setting forth 1088 cases of  psychiatric torture used against Falun Gong practitioners.

Meanwhile, like countless others deemed to be destabilizing influences by the Chinese Communist Party, Gu remains imprisoned in a psychiatric torture chamber.  The brave Chinese human rights defenders who brought her case to the world are themselves victimized by local officials, who chased them as they escaped the Ankang with Gu’s videotape.

Gu should be released, immediately, along with all others trapped in Ankangs all over China, not because they have mental health issues, but simply to silence or break them.  Psychiatric abuse of One Child Policy victims, and of all others that the Chinese Communist Party views as a political threat, must stop.

Author’s Note:  Here are links to articles and reports relevant to this Op-Ed.

“Campaign Targets Psychiatric Abuse,” 10/27/10, Radio Free Asia

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/psychiatric-10272010125824.html

“Torture and Cruel Treatment in Health Settings,” [Undated] Human Rights Watch

http://www.hrw.org/node/87882

“China:  No Medical Reason to Hold Dissident,” 3/17/06, Human Rights Watch

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2006/03/16/china-no-medical-reason-hold-dissident

China:  Political Prisoner Exposes Brutality in Police-Run Mental Hospital,” 11/2/05, Human Rights Watch

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2005/10/31/china-political-prisoner-exposes-brutality-police-run-mental-hospital

“Chinese Police Inadvertently Admit Psychiatric Abuses,” The Epoch Times, 5/30/10

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/36505/

“Database Opens to Track Psychiatric Abuse in China,” 10/13/09, The Epoch Times

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=23803&pop=1&page=0&Itemid=1

“Psychiatric Torture of Falun Gong Practitioners Widespread, Sas UN Submission,” Falun Dafa Information Center, 3/25/10

http://faluninfo.net/article/1005/

“Cries from China,” a new, half hour program on the One Child Policy, will be aired for the rest of this week and the week of November 8.  The host, Brad Mattes, interviews three people.  Steve Mosher talks about the One Child Policy in the ’80s; a victim of the Policy describes how she suffered three forced abortions; and Reggie Littlejohn describes current practices of forced abortion, forced sterilization and infanticide.  The first link below will take you to the Facing Life website, where you can watch the 30-minute episode online.  The second link will take you to the broadcast schedule, so you can watch the show on TV.

“Cries from China” – China’s One Child Policy 30 min. TV special 10/24/10

Facing Life Head On, Host Brad Mattes

http://www.facinglife.tv/episode/season_5/episode_2/episode_502.html

Facing Life Head On – TV Show Times

http://www.facinglife.tv/showinfo.htm

Have you seen this video of a Chinese woman forced to undergo abortion at 8 months?

A brave reporter sneaked into a Chinese hospital to speak with the woman, and later her husband, waiting outside in a car. It’s just 2 minutes long, and it’s not graphic, but is heartbreaking.  The woman only let herself be filmed from the neck down because she was “terrified of retribution.”  The film shows her with huge bruises on her arm.  Her husband described the scene in which she was captured.  “They held her arms behind her back, pushed her head against the door, kicked her stomach, and I don’t know whether they were trying to give her a miscarriage.”  The footage shows the jail cell where she was held as they gave her 8 month unborn baby a lethal injection.

This video is further evidence that China’s coercive family planning practices cause more violence against women than any other official policy on earth.  Thousands of women are being dragged out of their homes, thrown into “family planning” jail cells, strapped down to tables and forced to abort pregnancies that they want, even up to the ninth month.  Forced abortion and forced sterilization are China’s war on women. The Chinese Communist Party itself has reported an annual abortion rate of more than 13 million.  That’s more than 35,000 abortions a day.  How many of these are forced?

I applaud Al-Jazeera for capturing this remarkable footage and bringing it to the attention of the world.  I disagree, however, that this incident is unusual because it happened in “one of China’s most modern cities.”  China’s coercive birth control policy is strictly enforced, both in the cities and in the countryside.  The fines referenced by the report can reach 10 times a person’s annual salary.  Most people cannot afford to pay these fines.  What’s left for them?  Forced abortion or forced sterilization.  Despite these appalling human rights violations, the Chinese Communist party recently announced that it will continue its One Child Policy for “decades” to come.  (See the links below.)

China:  One Child Policy Will Stand.  CNN 9/27/10

http://articles.cnn.com/2010-09-27/world/china.one.child.policy_1_family-planning-policy-family-planning-commission-child?_s=PM:WORLD

Epoch Times – Of 13 Million Abortions in China, Most are Forced 8/31/09

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/21819/

I applaud the Nobel Peace Prize committee for focusing the attention of the international community on the appalling state of human rights in China.  They did this despite China’s threat that awarding this Prize to Liu would harm relations between China and Norway.  The Chinese Communist Party should release peaceful pro-Democracy advocate Liu Xiaobo immediately.

Read the full article here.

USA Today ran an article on September 9 proclaiming that “China may relax its one-child rule.” UPI, ABC and dozens of other media organs followed suit. Indeed, TIME NewsFeed ran the headline, “China Could Overthrow One-Child Rule.”

Don’t be fooled. I rejoice for the families that may eventually be allowed a second child under this proposed “pilot program.” Nevertheless, China has not relaxed, rescinded or overthrown its brutal One-Child Policy. As an initial matter, this proposed modification is not for everyone, but only for couples in which at least one spouse is an only child. Any article proclaiming otherwise should be regarded with skepticism for the following three reasons.

1) The problem with the One Child Policy is not the number of children allowed. Rather, it is the fact that the policy is enforced through forced abortion, forced sterilization and infanticide. Even if some couples will eventually be allowed to have two children under this “pilot program,” the Chinese Communist Party has emphatically not stated that they will cease their appalling methods of enforcement. Women who get pregnant without a “birth permit” will still be dragged out of their homes, strapped down to tables and forced to abort babies that they want, even up to the ninth month of pregnancy. It does not matter whether you are pro-life or pro-choice on this issue. No one supports forced abortion, because it is not a choice. If you want to read a dozen expert reports on the current, coercive implementation of China’s One Child Policy, click here. http://www.womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org/index.php?nav=congressional

2) The announcement of this so-called “relaxation” of the Policy seems strategically timed to draw attention away from the plight of blind One Child Policy activist Chen Guangcheng, who was released on the same day. Chen served a four-year prison sentence during which he endured severe torture and deprivation of medical treatment. Chen exposed the fact that there were 130,000 mass forced abortions and forced sterilizations in Linyi County, Shandong Province, China, in 2005. On April 30, 2006, Time Magazine named him in its list of “2006’s Top 100 People Who Shape Our World,” in the category of “Heroes and Pioneers,” and he was recently nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Although Chen was released yesterday – weak and in need of medical attention – sources inside China report that his house is surrounded by 20 security police. As of this writing, Chen and his family cannot leave home. Did the Chinese Communist Party’s Propaganda Department time its announcement that it is “loosening up” on the One Child Policy to divert attention from what happens to Chinese nationals who expose the brutal truth about forced abortion in China?

3) Areas in which two children are allowed are especially vulnerable to “gendercide,” the sex-selective abortion of females. Allowing some couples to have two children will not solve China’s demographic problems regarding gender disparity, caused by China’s traditional preference for boys. Indeed, according to a study of 2005 national census data, in nine provinces, for “second order births” where the first child is a girl, 160 boys are born for every 100 girls. According to the 2009 British Medical Journal study of this data, “Sex selective abortion accounts for almost all the excess males.” Because of this gendercide, there are an estimated 37 million Chinese men who will never marry because their future wives were terminated before they were born. This gender imbalance is a powerful, driving force behind trafficking in women and sexual slavery, not only in China, but in neighboring nations as well.

So, don’t be fooled. The coercive enforcement of China’s One Child Policy causes more violence toward women and girls than any other official policy on earth, and any other official policy in the history of the world. Much as the Chinese Communist Party’s Propaganda Department would like us to, we can’t cross the One Child Policy off our mental checklist of human rights concerns. The coercive enforcement of China’s One Child Policy constitutes a crime against humanity.

Reggie Littlejohn is President of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, a non-partisan, international coalition to oppose forced abortion and sexual slavery in China. As an expert on China’s One Child Policy for Human Rights Without Frontiers and China Aid, she has delivered an address at the European Parliament in Brussels, briefed the White House and testified before Congress (the United States Congressional Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission). She has spoken at the Harvard Law School, Stanford Law School, George Washington University, and The Heritage Foundation. A graduate of Yale Law School, Ms. Littlejohn has represented Chinese refugees in their political asylum cases in the United States.