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2008: A Mandate for Madness
In China, maintaining the right image is often everything, and nowhere is this more true, at this time, than in Beijing.
As the host city of the 2008 Olympic Games, Chinese authorities are going to great lengths to ensure that the city presents the the right image for the millions of foreign and domestic tourists who are expected to arrive. As such, authorities have embarked on a pronounced scheme of city beautification; planting trees, renovating buildings, and even signing far reaching ordinances banning multistory cranes from the cities skylines months prior to the opening of the Games.
Of course, these efforts have not been without controversy. There have been complaints over compulsory land requisitions and demolitions, the displacement of citizens to make way for public amenities, and the upgrading of facilities to such an extent that some have now left the price range of the average man on the street. There have even been accusations that city authorities might be on the verge of expelling hundreds of thousands of migrant workers for the duration of the games in case 'they make Beijing look untidy'. However, amidst all of this, a new controversy has now emerged.
According to reports, Beijing city authorities are planning to launch a crackdown on those suffering from mental illnesses and psychological conditions, in order to prevent them from causing 'harm to society' during the 2008. A euphemisms taken to mean 'portraying a side of Beijing that authorities would rather keep from tourists'.
It is currently unclear what kind of form such a crackdown would take, although the Chinese media has suggested that it may take the form of enforced institutionalization for the duration of the Games for people with a wide variety of disorders. It may also take the form of official orders forcing relatives of the mentally ill to confine them during certain hours, or forbidding them from entering certain regions of the city.
According to city officials, individual municipal authorities will be in charge of the crackdown.
| “The city government plans to ask the municipal (council) to make a law about psychiatric health regulations aimed at providing mental health treatment and preventing mentally ill people from damaging the public interest.” Zhou Jidong, Head of legal Affairs, Beijing City Government |
Understandably, the prospect of a street sweeping exercise to remove the mentally ill from public view during the games, has has not been well received by mental health charities and human rights interests.
Based on past initiatives, it is unlikely that any crackdown will include a sustained treatment or rehabilitation program to care for the mentally ill once the games are over.
Secondary Agenda?
While Beijing has concerns over the effect that 'wondering mentally ill' may have on the image of the 2008 games, and mental health groups have concerns over the effect that a street sweeping exercise might have on the human rights of some of China's most vulnerable people, some China watchers have questioned whether Beijing might have more in mind that detaining.
In addition to detaining old people with dementia and young people with emotional difficulties, China watchers have questioned whether Beijing might be planning to use mental health laws as a means of detaining dissidents in order to prevent them from mounting public protests during the 2008 games, or from using the Games as a opportunity to meet with foreign journalists.
Extra Judicial Detention
Beijing has a known history of using 'mental illness' as a political tool to silence protesters, and has frequently acted to imprison persistent demonstrators using open ended mental health legislation, and of using the label of mental illness as a weapon to discredit its critics.
In one past case, human rights activist Wang Wanxing was detained on the June 3 1992, after he attempted to meet foreign journalist at Tiananmen Square, in order to discuss the massacre that took place there three years earlier.
Wang was committed to a mental institution run by the Chinese security forces in Beijing's Fangshan District, where he was detained until August 1999, when he was released on a trial basis. However, in December Wang requested permission to discuss his confinement with the media, at which point he was re-detained, finally being released in 2005. As a mental health prisoner, Wang was outside of the legal system, had no access to a lawyer, and his detention was not subject to judicial review. He was also detained on an open sentence, meaning that his incarceration had no upper time limit.
Officially, Wang was recorded as suffering from a condition known as "political monomania"; a mental illness under which sufferers experience dangerously obsessive paranoid delusions relating to political issues. This condition is not recognized as a mental disorder by the WHO.
According to an assessment made by Chinese psychologists, shortly before his release, Wang remained dangerously mentally ill, and required both detention and medication.
| "[Wang] displays impairments of thought association and of mental logic. His systematic delusions have shown no conspicuous improvement since he was first admitted to the hospital, and his [mental] activities are still characterized by delusions of grandeur, litigation mania, and a conspicuously enhanced pathological will. Psychological report, Fall 2005 |
However, after his release in 2005, an independent team of experts, including European experts on mental illness and psychosis concluded that Wang was suffering from no detectable form of mental or physical illness other than those naturally associated with the stress of such an extended detention.
| "There was no reason that Mr. Wang had to be locked up in a special forensic psychiatric hospital or to be admitted to any psychiatric facility.... We were not able to reveal any form of mental disorder: no signs of depression, psychosis or organic disorder." Independent psychiatric report |
Other cases include those of Liu Xinjuan and Hu Jia, both high profile activists.
In January 2006, Chinese security forces seized land rights activist Liu Xinjuan from Jing’an park, Shanghai, as she prepared to take a petition to the People’s Congress. After being interrogated at a Minhang District police station, she was transfered to the Beiqiao Psychiatric Hospital after authorities ruled that her protest were a sign that she was 'mentally unsound'. It was the fifth time in three years that authorities had detained Liu in a mental institution because eof her protests against forced evictions and abuse of land rights.
In mid 2004, Chinese security forces demanded that the family of AIDS activist Hu Jia commit him to a mental institution 'for evaluation', on the grounds that his health and human rights campaigning was a sign of mental illness. When Hu's family declined, he was involuntarily committed.
An unknown number, rumored to be several thousand, followers of the FLG spiritual movement, have also been forcefully institutionalized.
According to Human Rights Watch, as much as 15 percent of institutionalized Chinese have been detained for political reasons, rather than genuine mental health reasons. It is not clear if this figure includes FLG members, who are commonly detained under separate laws permitting them to be detained for up to two years 'reeducation' without trial or charge.
This happened to a small extent in Los Angeles for the 1984 Olympics. The
homeless street people were arrested on sundry vagrancy charges and held in
jail long enough to collect a busfull to be shipped to destinations far out
of town. This included a sizeable portion of people who had been released
from asylums which had been closed due to lack of funding (Mr. Google will
tell you about this if you enter the word California and the phrase
Proposition 13).
ACB: Great post and it will be interesting to watch and see what happens.
Perhaps the pressure on the government for appearences will snap something
in place and NGOs will get to play a bigger role in deciding how the people
with mental illnesses will be taken care of. As for the dissidents...
well...
It seems plausible that there would be an agenda behind it. In many Asian
cultures, as far as I know, mental health failures are not openly
discussed. I am not sure what the ground level situation in China then
would be - how much of dissent would be expressed, in support of such
people (whether genuinely mentally ill or framed). In India, for e.g.,
there have been shocking cases of negligence in asylums, and these flare up
in the media for a short while, only to go under again.
In China, the care of the mentally ill is often left up to families,
particularly in the case of age related conditions or conditions that are
apparent from childhood (handicaps rather than illnesses).
I'm betting Taiwan president Chen would love to use this law to lock up the
protestors that recently ruined Taiwan's National Holiday.
The concept of mental illnesses being shameful is generally being erased in
Taiwan, especially in the past few years. The government has been making a
point of educating students about depression and the prevention of it
leading to suicide. Such mental illnesses are no longer considered shameful
in the young generation, but for people my parent's age (about forty and
above) it is still a taboo. For a while my mother seemed to be suffering
from anxiety and I asked her to see a doctor about it. She was adamant
against the notion and said that a record of her seeing a shrink would
effect my future career.
LL--Some BIG differences between immigrants in LA and migrants in PRC:
immigrants have access to public services (schools, healthcare); they can
hold public protests when they feel their rights infringed upon; if they
are caught,they get deported. I think they last is the greatest advantage
they have over PRC migrants. Unless the immigrants are originally from PRC,
they get to go to someplace besides China.
The mental health system is very commonly used to imprison, label, and
intimidate people in the US as well, although not usually for political
reasons. I am a lawyer, and you'd be surprised how easy it is for a
relative to get someone locked up temporarily. You might also be surprised
how easy it is to label someone 'mentally ill'. The mental health system
seems to be used worldwide as the ultimate way of discrediting anyone we
don't want to listen to - after all, if they protest, then they're
"paranoid"...
Put of interest, how often does inheritance feature in the locking up of a
relitive in an insane asylum?
"This happened to a small extent in Los Angeles for the 1984 Olympics. The
homeless street people were arrested on sundry vagrancy charges and held in
jail long enough to collect a busfull to be shipped to destinations far out
of town." -- This claim would be more credible if you could provide a
reference.
It's not a secret, it was announced by Zhou Jidong, the head of legal
Affairs for the Beijing City Government about 2 years ago.
ACB - I think Jerry was addressing me in his comment.
Susan: