China Treats Dissent Harshly in Mental Facilities

China may be an advanced industrial nation now, but it is nothing close to a democracy. Local officials’ response to mild complaints from citizens is to throw them into mental hospitals where they are savagely abused, The New York Times reports.

It cites the case of Xu Lindong, an impoverished farmer with a fourth-grade education. Upset by a land dispute, he simply filed a series of complaints against the local government. In response, the government drafted an order to commit him to a mental hospital and then forged his brother’s signature on the document.

Xu told The Times he suffered 54 electric-shock treatments, was constantly tied to his bed and continuously injected with drugs powerful enough to make him faint. “Fearing he would be left permanently disabled, he said, he attempted suicide three times.”

And this is the nation lecturing us on how to run our economic affairs.