Wang Wanxing, a dissident in China, has been detained in a mental hospital for 12 years. His wife has appealed to the Chinese government to release him immediately, or to imprison him as a prisoner of conscience. Human rights organizations say that the Chinese government’s practice of putting political and religious dissidents into mental hospitals is a form of persecution.

Wang Wanxing’s wife Wang Junying has traveled from Germany to the United States to rescue her husband who has been detained in a mental hospital for 12 years. She told VOA reporters that on June 3, 1992, Wang Wanxing invited several Western reporters to Tiananmen Square to discuss the June 4th Incident. He brought with him a 10,000-word letter addressed to [China’s then-Military Chairman] Deng Xiaoping, a banner, and a tape. He planned to make a speech asking for justice for the June 4 Incident at Tiananmen Square and the issues that had emerged since the economic reform.

But when Wanxing arrived at Tiananmen Square, he was immediately taken away by waiting police officers. The foreign reporters’ film was confiscated and destroyed. The reporters were beaten by the police.

Junying said that Chaoyang Branch Police Station of Beijing sent Wanxing to Ankang Hospital. She said this mental hospital, located in the mountains of Fangshan District, a suburb of Beijing, was picked by the police. She was allowed one visit per month. Wang Junying said that the police at the Chaoyang Branch Station said that the reason that Wanxing was sent to a mental hospital was that he was the only one who had the courage to commemorate the June 4 Incident on Tiananmen, while nobody else dared.

She said, “[The police said,] why did we put your husband in a mental hospital? [The police then] said, it has been three years, and nobody dared to go to Tiananmen. He was the only one. He was going to Tiananmen, and had a banner, a tape, and an appeal letter. [The police] said anyone who would do this must be insane. That was what police at the Chaoyang Branch Station told me.”

Wang Junying said that her husband used to be a long-distance runner, and was in very good physical health before his arrest. But since he was put into a mental hospital, he was forced to take drugs administered by the hospital and had strong reactions. Now Wang Wanxing’s body has been damaged, and he suffers heart disease. Wang Junying said that for the last 12 years, she has been asking the hospital to issue a diagnosis saying that her husband is mentally insane, but the hospital never gave her one.

She said, “I want to tell the Communist Party that they’ve detained my husband for 12 years without a diagnosis. I have asked for more than 10 years, and they never gave me one. On the other hand, if he is a prisoner of conscience, he should be put in prison. So I believe that what the Communist Party is doing is not humane. My husband is a normal person detained in a mental hospital. I hope he can be released soon.”

Liu Qing, Chairman of New York-based China Human Rights, said that Wang Wanxing in Beijing, Wang Miaogen in Shanghai, and some Falun Gong practitioners have all been detained in mental hospitals.

Liu said, “In China, there are still a fair number of people who are detained in mental hospitals due to political or religious reasons. Human Rights Watch has published a report to expose how the Chinese government uses mental hospitals to carry out political persecutions and crackdowns.”

Liu said that besides political and religious dissidents, the Chinese government has recently become unhappy with Hu Jia, an AIDS prevention and treatment activist. The police has asked his family members to send him to a mental hospital. They threatened that if the family members wouldn’t do it, the police would send him there themselves.

Liu believes that it was not the Chinese government who first detained dissidents in mental hospitals; the former Soviet Union also treated dissidents this way. Apparently China is also using mental hospitals as a means to persecute dissidents.