Gu Xianghong languishes in an \u201cAnkang,\u201d a special Chinese psychiatric hospital run by police, Radio Free Asia reports.\u00a0 In a video quoted by RFA, Gu says, \u201cThey put electrodes on my temples and they were burned black.\u00a0 They handcuffed me and chained my feet . . . My [entire family] and home have been ruined by the village government.\u201d\u00a0 They also subjected her to injections against her will.\u00a0 According to the report, Gu has been jailed nine times in the Ankang since 1992.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 The Rights group is mounting a campaign called \u201cMental Hospitals SOS,\u201d to call attention to official psychiatric abuse in China.<\/p>\n
Why has Gu repeatedly been jailed and tortured in an Ankang?\u00a0 She sued the local government over \u201cfamily planning issues.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is another example of the fact that the coercive enforcement of China\u2019s One Child Policy causes more violence against women and girls than any other official policy on earth.\u00a0 This violence takes the form of forced abortion, forced sterilization, infanticide, gendercide, sexual slavery and female suicide.\u00a0 Now add to this grim list:\u00a0 psychiatric torture for those who dare to challenge family planning abuses.<\/p>\n
Gu is not the first person the Chinese Communist Party has jailed to silence them on family planning abuses.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 For this, he served a four year, three month jail sentence, during which time he was severely beaten and denied medical treatment.\u00a0 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:\u00a0 http:\/\/www.womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org\/index.php?nav=congressional<\/a><\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Wang told Human Rights Watch about the conditions he had endured.\u00a0\u00a0 He stated, for example, that he had been forced to watch staff members administer \u201celectric acupuncture treatments\u201d in which the current used was excruciating.\u00a0 One inmate died of a heart attack during such a \u201ctreatment.\u201d<\/p>\n 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\u00a0 psychiatric torture used against Falun Gong practitioners.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, like countless others deemed to be destabilizing influences by the Chinese Communist Party, Gu remains imprisoned in a psychiatric torture chamber.\u00a0 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\u2019s videotape.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 Psychiatric abuse of One Child Policy victims, and of all others that the Chinese Communist Party views as a political threat, must stop.<\/p>\n Author\u2019s Note:\u00a0 Here are links to articles and reports relevant to this Op-Ed.<\/p>\n \u201cCampaign Targets Psychiatric Abuse,\u201d 10\/27\/10, Radio Free Asia<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/china\/psychiatric-10272010125824.html<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cTorture and Cruel Treatment in Health Settings,\u201d [Undated] Human Rights Watch<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.hrw.org\/node\/87882<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cChina:\u00a0 No Medical Reason to Hold Dissident,\u201d 3\/17\/06, Human Rights Watch<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.hrw.org\/en\/news\/2006\/03\/16\/china-no-medical-reason-hold-dissident<\/a><\/p>\n China:\u00a0 Political Prisoner Exposes Brutality in Police-Run Mental Hospital,\u201d 11\/2\/05, Human Rights Watch<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.hrw.org\/en\/news\/2005\/10\/31\/china-political-prisoner-exposes-brutality-police-run-mental-hospital<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cChinese Police Inadvertently Admit Psychiatric Abuses,\u201d The Epoch Times, 5\/30\/10<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/n2\/content\/view\/36505\/<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cDatabase Opens to Track Psychiatric Abuse in China,\u201d 10\/13\/09, The Epoch Times<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/n2\/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=23803&pop=1&page=0&Itemid=1<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cPsychiatric Torture of Falun Gong Practitioners Widespread, Sas UN Submission,\u201d Falun Dafa Information Center, 3\/25\/10<\/p>\n http:\/\/faluninfo.net\/article\/1005\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Gu Xianghong languishes in an \u201cAnkang,\u201d a special Chinese psychiatric hospital run by police, Radio Free Asia reports.\u00a0 In a video quoted by RFA, Gu says, \u201cThey put electrodes on my temples and they were burned black.\u00a0 They handcuffed me … Continue reading