he had merely filed a series of complaints against the local government. The government’s response was to draw up an order to commit him to a mental hospital — and then to forge his brother’s name on the signature line.
China like all authoritarian regimes strives to control society through various means such as the Great Firewall which blocks such subversive media outlets as the BBC because information in the wrong hands can be dangerous at least that’s what China’s political class at all levels believe. The break-up of the Warsaw Pact is an excellent example where given the means and access to information the people of Eastern Europe brought about a stunning be largely peaceful revolution. Given that known history is it any wonder that the authorities in China have sought various means and methods for controlling its citizens.
In an interview, he said he had endured 54 electric-shock treatments, was repeatedly roped to his bed and was routinely injected with drugs powerful enough to make him swoon. Fearing he would be left permanently disabled, he said, he attempted suicide three times.
For most Chinese how the seek redress is through the petitioning of the state. Local or national government it’s a centuries old tradition in China today however that is being taken away.
The most dogged petitioners are often classified as crazy. In an interview last year, Sun Dongdong, chief of forensic psychiatry at prestigious Peking University, said, “I have no doubt that at least 99 percent of China’s pigheaded, persistent ‘professional petitioners’ are mentally ill.” He later apologized for what he said was an “inappropriate” remark.
One must ask how long China’s government has before the boiling caldron it tries so hard to keep the lid explodes.
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