Interned in psychiatric hospital for 6 ½ years for presenting petitions
Beijing (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Four officials of the district government of Luohe (Henan) were removed for having interned a petitioner in a psychiatric hospital for over 6 years. Protests are growing in the country over local authorities systematic abuse of protesters.
Xu Lindong, the author of a petitioner from Daliu city has been interned in two psychiatric hospitals since October 2003. Xu began presenting petitions in 1997, both to local and central authorities. In 2003, dissatisfied with the response of local authorities, he decided to go to Beijing to petition. In response, local authorities had him forcibly repatriated, first sent him Zhumadian psychiatric hospital and later Luohe Psychiatric hospital, where was diagnosed with obsessive-ompulsive disorder and was subjected to 54 electroshock treatments.
Shi Hongtai and Yang Yaoqin, then secretary and deputy secretary of the Communist Party of Daliu, later promoted to higher positions, have been charged with his internment. It appears that they used false documents to have Xu interned.
The news has caused widespread protests and a campaign of online subscriptions, denouncing "the growing trend of regional authorities to restrict the freedom of citizens through similar measures [internment in psychiatric hospitals]."
Now the lawyer Boyang Chang, co-organizer of the signature campaign and family lawyer for Xu, has announced legal action against the Communist officials and hospital responsible for the illegal internment and is demanding compensation. It seems that local government has offered Xu 1000 yuan (about 110 euros) and some material aid to compensate the more than six years of detention.
The system of petitions, although inefficient, in theory is completely free and any citizen can contact the local authorities or higher level ones to ask for justice: a clear legacy of the imperial era, when each subject could seek justice from the authorities. But the same authorities are often those responsible for the very abuses the petitioners seek to stop and as a result the protest reaches the central authorities. The existence of "Ghost prisons" are well known, places where those who petition are "detained" for long periods without trial and without charges and unable to even tell their families.
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