-Caveat Lector-
http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2002/08/24/story/0000165355
Psychiatrists aim at China's abuse
REUTERS, YOKOHAMA, JAPAN
China is under pressure to open its mental asylums to foreign
scrutiny as the world's psychiatry body responds to allegations that
they contain thousands of political dissidents locked up as mental
patients.
A week-long congress of the World Psychiatric Association began
yesterday in Yokohama, with focus on a study that concluded abuse
of psychiatry in China is rampant.
A WPA general assembly vote is expected on Monday on whether
to adopt a motion demanding that Beijing open the asylum doors to
an independent investigation of prisoners' mental health.
"[Evidence shows] a long-standing record of the misuse of
psychiatry for politically repressive purposes, one that resembles in
all key respects that of the former Soviet Union."
Human Rights Watch report
If Beijing refuses, it could lead to eventual expulsion from the
organization.
The last time a major member was forced out was in the 1980s
when the Soviet Union withdrew under intense pressure.
With the Communist government keen to avoid international
censure as it prepares to host the Olympics in 2008, human-rights
activists say it is unlikely to risk a serious breakdown of relations
with the WPA.
WPA President Juan Lopez-Ibor said yesterday that China had
already agreed to let investigators in to work with its national
psychiatry society and was showing every sign of cooperating.
"I spoke with the deputy minister of health in order to ensure that the
Chinese Society of Psychiatry's activities with the WPA will not be
prevented," he told a news conference.
But Robin Munro, a China specialist who authored the critical study
published by US-based Human Rights Watch and the Geneva
Initiative on Psychiatry, said the Chinese Health Ministry had only
agreed to an "educational" visit by the WPA.
"I suspect that the Chinese side are under a lot of pressure
internationally so, rather than just denying everything, they're at least
making a show of cooperating with the WPA," Munro said
yesterday.
"I'm not sure that's going to be substantive cooperation, but let's wait
and see."
In his report, Munro said China was using psychiatry to have political
opponents declared insane -- a practice he likened to what had
happened in the old Soviet Union. He said the situation had
worsened since Beijing began a crackdown on the Falun Gong
movement.
Munro said a surge in cases involving Falun Gong followers was
clear evidence that police and forensic psychiatrists were working
together to enforce the suppression of dissidents.
China has driven Falun Gong followers deep underground, using its
security and military apparatus to smash what it labelled an "evil
cult" and banned in 1999.
Citing numerous official documents, the report said that up to 15
percent of people held in Chinese mental institutions may be
political prisoners, including labor activists and individuals who
complain about political persecution.
The evidence showed "a long-standing record of the misuse of
psychiatry for politically repressive purposes, one that resembles in
all key respects that of the former Soviet Union."
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Joining the traditional rationalizations for state coercion - "God's
will," "the consent of the governed," and "social justice" - comes a
fourth: "coercion as treatment." Unlike theocracy, democracy, and
socialism, however, pharmacracy has met little opposition.
-Thomas S. Szasz
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