Nyima Pratten
BBC Eye Surveys
BBC
Zhang Junjie held up a blank sheet of paper to symbolize censorship and was sent to a mental hospital.
When Zhang Junjie was 17, he decided to protest in front of his university against the rules set by the Chinese government. A few days later, he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital and treated for schizophrenia.
Junjie is one of dozens of people identified by the BBC who have been hospitalized after protesting or complaining to authorities.
Many people we spoke to were given antipsychotic medication, and in some cases electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), without their consent.
For decades, there have been reports that hospitalization has been used in China as a way to detain dissident citizens without involving the courts. However, the BBC found that a problem the legislation sought to address has recently made a comeback.
Junjie says he was held down and beaten by hospital staff before being forced to take medication.
His ordeal began in 2022, after protesting China’s harsh containment policies. He says his teachers spotted him after just five minutes and contacted his father, who took him back to the family home. He says his father called the police and the next day – on his 18th birthday – two men drove him to what they claimed was a Covid testing center, but which was actually a hospital.
“The doctors told me that I had a very serious mental illness… Then they tied me to a bed. The nurses and doctors told me repeatedly, because of my views on the party and the government, that I must then be mentally ill. It was terrifying,” he told the BBC World Service. He stayed there for 12 days.
Junjie believes his father felt obligated to hand him over to the authorities because he worked for the local government.
A little over a month after being released, Junjie was arrested again. Defying the ban on Chinese New Year fireworks (a measure put in place to combat air pollution), he made a video of himself setting them off. Someone posted it online and the police were able to link it to Junjie.
Junjie, who now lives in New Zealand, is devastated by his experience
He was accused of “picking quarrels and creating trouble” – an accusation frequently used to silence criticism of the Chinese government. Junjie says he was forcibly hospitalized again for more than two months.
After being released, Junjie was prescribed antipsychotic medication. We saw the prescription: it was for aripiprazole, used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
“Taking the medicine made me feel like my brain was in disarray,” he said, adding that police came to his house to check that he had taken it.
Fearing a third hospitalization, Junjie decides to leave China. He told his parents he was going back to college to clean his room, but in fact he ran away to New Zealand.
He didn’t say goodbye to his family or friends.
Junjie is one of 59 people the BBC has confirmed – either by speaking to them or their relatives or by reviewing court documents – to have been hospitalized for mental health reasons after protesting or defying authorities.
The problem was recognized by the Chinese government: the Mental Health Law of 2013 aimed to end such abuse, making it illegal to treat someone who does not suffer from mental illness. It also explicitly states that admission to psychiatry must be voluntary, unless the patient poses a danger to himself or others.
In fact, the number of people held in psychiatric hospitals against their will has recently increased, a prominent Chinese lawyer told the BBC World Service. Huang Xuetao, who helped draft the law, blames the weakening of civil society and the lack of checks and balances.
“I have encountered many cases like this. The police want to have power while avoiding responsibility,” he says. “Anyone who knows the flaws in this system can abuse it.”
An activist named Jie Lijian told us he was treated for mental illness without his consent in 2018.
Jie Lijian tried to sue the police to have his medical records changed
Lijian says he was arrested for participating in a protest demanding better wages at a factory. He claims the police questioned him for three days before taking him to a psychiatric hospital.
Like Junjie, Lijian says he was prescribed antipsychotic medication that impairs his critical thinking.
After a week in the hospital, he said he refused to take any more medications. After fighting with staff and being told he was causing problems, Lijian was sent to undergo ECT, a therapy that involves passing electrical currents through a patient’s brain.
“The pain went from head to toe. My whole body felt like it wasn’t mine. It was really painful. Electric shock on, then off. Electric shock on. Then off. I felt passed out several times, I felt like I was dying,” he said.
He said he was released after 52 days. He now works part-time in Los Angeles and is seeking asylum in the United States.
In 2019, the year after Lijian said he was hospitalized, the Chinese Doctors Association updated its guidelines for ECT, saying it should only be administered with consent and under general anesthesia .
We wanted to know more about the involvement of doctors in such cases.
Speaking to foreign media outlets such as the BBC without permission could get them into trouble, so our only option was to go undercover.
We have booked telephone consultations with doctors working in four hospitals which, according to our information, practice forced hospitalizations.
We used a made-up story about a relative who was hospitalized for posting anti-government comments online, and asked five doctors if they had ever encountered cases of patients being sent by the police.
Four confirmed having done so.
“The psychiatry department has a type of admission called ‘disorders’,” a doctor explained to us.
Another doctor, from the hospital where Junjie was held, appeared to confirm his account that police continued to monitor patients once they were released.
“The police will monitor you at home to make sure you are taking your medication. If you don’t take it, you could break the law again,” they said.
We contacted the hospital in question for comment, but they did not respond.
We gained access to the medical records of democracy activist Song Zaimin, who was hospitalized for the fifth time last year, making clear how closely political views appear to be linked to a psychiatric diagnosis.
“Today he spoke a lot, incoherently and criticized the Communist Party. That’s why he was sent to our hospital for hospitalization by the police, doctors and his local residents’ committee. It was of compulsory hospitalization.” it says.
Activist Song Zaimin’s medical records show the close connection between political views and hospitalization.
We asked Professor Thomas G Schulze, President-elect of the World Psychiatric Association, to review these notes. He replied:
“As described here, no one should be involuntarily admitted and treated against their will. This reeks of political abuse.”
Between 2013 and 2017, more than 200 people reported being wrongly hospitalized by authorities, according to a group of Chinese citizen journalists who documented violations of the mental health law.
Their reporting ended in 2017, as the group’s founder was arrested and subsequently imprisoned.
For victims seeking justice, the legal system seems to work against them.
A man we call Mr. Li, who was hospitalized in 2023 after protesting local police, attempted to sue authorities over his incarceration.
Unlike Junjie, doctors told Mr. Li that he was not ill, but the police then called in an outside psychiatrist to evaluate him, who diagnosed him with bipolar disorder, and he was detained for 45 days.
Once released, he decided to challenge the diagnosis.
“If I don’t file a complaint against the police, it’s like I’m accepting that I’m mentally ill. This will have a big impact on my future and my freedom because the police can use it as an excuse to attack me. lock up at any time,” he said.
In China, the records of anyone ever diagnosed with a serious mental disorder could be shared with police and even local residents’ committees.
But Mr. Li did not win his case: the courts rejected his appeal.
“We hear our leaders talk about the rule of law,” he told us. “We never imagined that one day we could be locked up in a psychiatric hospital.”
The BBC listed on China’s official court rulings website 112 people who, between 2013 and 2024, attempted to take legal action against police, local governments or hospitals over such treatment.
Around 40% of these complainants had been involved in complaints against the authorities. Only two of them won their case.
And the site appears to be censored: five other cases we investigated are missing from the database.
The problem is that the police enjoy “considerable discretion” in their dealings with “troublemakers”, according to Nicola MacBean of The Rights Practice, a human rights organization in London.
“Sending someone to a psychiatric hospital, bypassing procedures, is too simple and too useful a tool for local authorities.”
Chinese social networks
Vlogger Li Yixue’s posts about her hospitalization after accusing the police of sexual assault recently went viral in China.
All eyes are now on the fate of vlogger Li Yixue, who accused a police officer of sexual assault. Yixue was recently reportedly hospitalized a second time after her social media posts talking about the experience went viral. It appears that she is currently under surveillance in a hotel.
We have forwarded the findings of our investigation to the UK Chinese Embassy. Last year, the Chinese Communist Party “reaffirmed” that it needed to “improve the mechanisms” around the law, which it said “explicitly prohibits illegal detention and other methods of unlawful deprivation or restriction of the personal freedom of citizens.
Additional reporting by Georgina Lam and Betty Knight
