Monday, September 14, 2009

Chinese Dissidents Committed to Mental Hospitals

I blogged about this last December. Last Friday, PBS NewsHour broadcast a video segment on this topic. Here's the video:


SHANNON VAN SANT: Qin Xinan is a long way from home. He has traveled from Wuhan, 700 miles away in central China, to Beijing, where he stays in this one-room shack. Every morning, he goes to government offices, pleading for help.

QIN XINAN, petitioner: I strongly ask Hu Jintao and the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee to punish corruption. Save Chinese people, ordinary people, the weak in society. Save China.

I'm not only standing on my own ground. I speak for thousands of people who get persecuted as mentally ill patients.

SHANNON VAN SANT: A former officer in the People's Liberation Army, Qin has been forcibly hospitalized six times, accused of being mentally ill. He says he's not the only one with grievances who's been treated that way.

QIN XINAN: The first time the diagnosis was acute stress disorder. The second time was paranoid schizophrenia. The third time, just like all the other petitioners, doctors diagnosed me with paranoid psychosis.

A former officer in the PLA no less. This is a different China now. Communist ideology is just a cover for corrupt officials looking for personal wealth... how ironic.

1 comment:

Gatsby said...

That Shannon Van Sant is HOT! Does anyone know if she has her own blog or some other online presence?