Mr. Zhao Xianghai Handcuffed and Shackled to a Bed and Injected with Unknown Substances at Xiangtan Mental Hospital

Name: Zhao Xianghai
Gender: Male
Age: Unknown
Address: Xiangtan, Hunan Province
Occupation: Crane operator
Date of Most Recent Arrest: 2006
Most Recent Place of Detention: Fifth People's Hospital in Xiangtan
City: Xiangtan
Province: Hunan
Persecution Suffered: Detention, forced labour reform, fired from workplace, forced injections/drug administration, electric shock, handcuffed and shackled

Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Zhao Xianghai is currently incarcerated in the Patient Department of the Xiangtan City Fifth Hospital (Mental Hospital) in Hunan Province. He is being held in Ward No. 2, the first room to the left behind the second layer of metal gates. Mr. Zhao is handcuffed and shackled to a metal bed all day long.

Mr. Zhao Xianghai was sent to this hospital in 2007, and has been there for more than four years. Medical personnel have injected him with unknown substances repeatedly, which has weakened his health. Nurse Ke Tao is currently in charge of monitoring Mr. Zhao. Doctor Long Quansheng is in charge the persecution. Anyone who wants to visit Mr. Zhao has to get approval from Long.

Mr. Zhao's mother traveled from Liuyang to visit her son on December 19th, but the hospital staff attempted to drive her away. A medical staffer yelled, “Zhao Xianghai is a special person, visitation is not allowed...” The mother managed to enter the hospital when hospital workers opened the door. She saw that the ward where her son was detained was locked, and her son was handcuffed and shackled, in a bed far away from the windows. When she called to her son, he broke free of the handcuffs and walked towards her. However, medical personnel forcibly dragged Mr. Zhao's mother outside. The mother cried, “Why won't you let me see my son and talk with him!” She was heartbroken.

After Mr. Zhao's mother returned to Liuyang, she looked for someone to help get her son back from Xiangtan, but local Chinese Communist Party (CCP) agents strictly monitored her and forbade her to go to Xiangtan.

Mr. Zhao is a former employee at the coking plant of the Xiangtan Iron and Steel Company. He was subjected to forced labour and held in the Xinkaipu Forced Labour Camp in 2006. Xiangtan City 610 Office agents (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong), along with staff members of the coking plant, arrested him and took him to the Xiangtan City Mental Hospital in August 2007.

While under strict monitoring, Mr. Zhao was able to write and get out of the hospital an appeal to relevant departments, including the Procuratorate, on November 23rd. In his appeal Mr. Zhao stated, “I am not a mental patient. I am not ill and I should never have been incarcerated in a mental hospital. I shouldn't have been shackled to a metal bed. I appeal in order to have relevant departments investigate, provide judicial appraisal and restore my freedom. According to the Mental Health Act, a person can request to be discharged from the hospital. I hereby request to be discharged.”

Mr. Zhao’s mother made several requests for her son's release to his employer, and to resume his employment. She went to the mental hospital to pick her son up, but the hospital officials demanded that she pay 38,000 yuan¹ in medical expenses as a condition for his release. This is a huge amount for a farmer. She depended on her son’s very limited income to support her. Since he was dismissed from his job and suffered from constant persecution, she became impoverished and has no way to acquire such a huge amount of money. The local CCP personnel knew her situation well. In 2010, Xiangtan Iron and Steel Company Union officials went to the mental hospital to visit Zhao and informed him, “If you want to come back to work, you must agree to two conditions. First, you can't believe in Falun Gong. Second, you must be in good health.” Zhao responded, “I was both mentally and physically healthy. You treated me as a mental patient and detained me here. You injected me with unknown drugs, which have weakened my body. The Chinese Constitution clearly states that citizens have freedom of belief. I follow Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance in order to cultivate myself. What’s wrong with that? Let me be clear: I am an innocent Falun Gong practitioner who has been brutally persecuted. I am a healthy man, both physically and mentally. You have to release me and restore my reputation. You've detained me here illegally and deprived me of my freedom and right to appeal. You threatened my mother. You are torturing me in this facility and destroying my life in an extremely painful way. You've committed many crimes!”

Related articles:

“Falun Gong Practitioner Zhao Xianghai Detained in the Xiangtan Psychiatric Hospital for Four Years” http://www.clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2011/7/2/126393.html

“Falun Dafa Practitioner Zhao Xianghai from Xiangtan City, Hunan Province Forcibly Taken to a Psychiatric Hospital” http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2007/10/31/90984.html

Individuals participating in this persecution:

Long Quansheng, dean and doctor in charge of the Fifth People Hospital (psychiatric hospital), Xiangtan: +86-732-2875002 (office)
Liu Jun, head of the Fifth People's Hospital (psychiatric hospital), Xiangtan: +86-15807320005

Note

1. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2012/1/14/251814.html