Chinese authorities have found a creative way to deal with dissidents and complainers. As local media reported on Monday at least 18 petitioners were held in a mental asylum in the province of Shangdon, in eastern China. Some were force-fed drugs.

According to Beijing News the victims were petitioners bringing complaints to the local or Beijing petitions and appeals offices. Their grievances ranged from police brutality to property disputes. The local authorities, fearing embarrassment and pressure to keep their area under tight control, often forcefully intercept those complaints.

However, the practice of forcefully sending people to mental hospitals without justification was, according to Robin Munro, author of China`s Psychatric Inquisition: Dissident, Psychitry and Law in Post-1949 China, mainly carried out against political dissidents. This trend seems to have changed since the 1990`s : “fewer are of that variety, and more and more are petitioners or whistleblowers exposing corruption, or simply persistent complainants,“ said Munro.

San Fawu, 57, a retired coal miner from a village in Xintai, had campaigned for years to get compensation for farm land spoiled from mining. During a 20 day stay in the local mental hospital in Xintai, he was force-fed drugs and injections. “My head was always dizzy and I could not stay up,“ he said. Sun was released only after he had signed a paper stating that he was mentally ill and would not petition again.

“This is a covert way to silence people ... There is no accountability or oversight. The person disappears and with them, whatever evidence they have compiled against officials.” said Munro. Once a citizen is certified as mentally ill by either a psychiatrist or the police, he loses all his legal rights and can be held indefinitely.

According to Munro it is impossible to tell how widespread the practice is. It seems clear, however, that it is used more frequently. The website of the Xintai petitions office for example posted a note dated 9th of November that urged officials to „show care for mentally ill petitioners, help them to get legal evaluation, and send those not in a sound mind to the hospital for treatment.“

Lao Shi, 84, who was sent to Xintai mental hospital in 2006 after travelling to Beijing to complain about a local property dispute, counted 18 petitioners over the last 2 years. He was released in 2008 and subsequently compiled a list of petitioners in the mental hospital in Xintai.

According to Munro the Beijing News article is however very unusual “because it’s rare for authorities to allow reporting on the subject to appear.“ Officials at the municipal publicity office in Xintai refused to comment on the report.

The report cites the hospital director, Wu Yuzhu, who stressed that “the hospital also has its misgivings,“ but that it was under a pressure to take petitioners, some of whom arrived escorted by police. An Shizhi, head of the letters and visits office in Quangou township, explained that local officials were under pressure to keep petitioner numbers down. “If petitioners bypass local authorities, the head of both the (Communist) Party and government get punished.“