Recently, a petitioner from Fuzhou revealed that Fuzhou Shenkang Psychiatric Hospital is holding more than 400 petitioners. They have reportedly suffered abuse including electric shocks and forced feeding, with some driven insane or even killed.
Chen Xiufang, a petitioner in her late seventies from Jin'an District, Fuzhou, Fujian, has faced repeated suppression over her years of rights advocacy. In March 2023, police forcibly carried her by her arms and legs into Fuzhou Shenkang Psychiatric Hospital. While there, she personally heard a doctor say that the hospital was holding more than 400 petitioners.
She told The Epoch Times, “A doctor there actually told me secretly that the hospital holds more than 800 mental patients in total, and more than 400 of them -- half the total -- are petitioners locked up there.”
Chen Xiufang said that if a single psychiatric hospital alone is holding this many petitioners, then across the whole country there must be even more psychiatric hospitals holding petitioners as well. “You can imagine the total number -- it's truly terrifying.”
Chen Xiufang recalled that she was forcibly tied to a bed for three days, force-fed, and forcibly injected with drugs, nearly losing her life.
“They stripped off all my clothes and tied down my hands and feet. When I struggled and protested, several male orderlies rushed over, pinched my nose shut, pried my mouth open with a metal plate, pried my teeth apart, pulled down my pants, and forcibly administered drugs -- they even gave me that kind of sedative injection,” she said.
“Others were shocked with electric batons -- it was worse than death.” Chen Xiufang said she saw a male petitioner nearly 60 years old who would lean against the window every night and scream, an utterly terrifying sight.
Su Xiao (a pseudonym), another petitioner, told The Epoch Times, “The people locked up inside the psychiatric hospital are bound and forced to take medication -- some of them have died.”
While Chen Xiufang was detained in the psychiatric hospital, the local government also deceived her son, who was living in Australia, telling him that his mother had a severe mental disorder and demanding that he return to China immediately, or else be placed on a national security blacklist.
At the time, her son was running a high fever and on an IV drip. Tricked into returning to China, he was harassed by police on a daily basis, who demanded he report to the police station -- causing delays in his treatment that ultimately led to his death.
“My son was forced back by the government on April 7 -- they said if he didn't come back he'd be put on the national security blacklist. The police kept harassing my son; at the time he had a high fever and had no time to see a doctor. He died on May 8,” Chen Xiufang said.
Chen Xiufang's son also told her that the authorities had threatened him, saying that if she did not give up her rights-defense activities, he would not be allowed to return to Australia.
Chen Xiufang said, “I have completely lost all faith in the CCP regime. If the suppression and persecution continue, I will go to the United States and protest in front of the Chinese embassy.”