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Zhou Xiao’s Harrowing Ordeal: Torture at the Mental Hospital

Zhou Xiao is from Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province. In early May 2012, he used a VPN to bypass the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) Internet blockade and came across a documentary about the Tiananmen Square massacre, which included footage of the military opening fire on the people. His neighbors heard the loud voice of the video, and one of them reported him.

The police intimidated his family, insisting that Zhou be committed to a mental hospital. The police threatened to punish his family members if they didn’t cooperate. The police chose to have Zhou committed to a mental hospital because, if Zhou were instead reported through official channels as an anti-Communist, the local police would face repercussions for having not worked effectively to prevent anti-Communist sentiment in their locality. Meanwhile, the police would not suffer any consequences from someone merely being classified as mentally ill.

Zhou’s mother arranged to get a second-degree mental disability certificate for Zhou. He was taken twice to the Wuxi Mental Health Center, also known as Wuxi No. 7 People’s Hospital. The mental hospital was terrifying. Every day he felt like he was one of the walking dead — he would just take medication, eat, and sleep. He felt drowsy after his doses of medication and always wanted to sleep. He was confined tohis floor for four months. “Patients” at the hospital were never allowed to go outside. The first-level ward held four or five people in a small room, while the large ward held 20 to 30 people per room.

Zhou was tied up multiple times. He said “as soon as you show any resistance in your words, the doctor would say: ‘He’s having an episode, tie him up!’ The restraint would last for 12 hours, with all four limbs fixed to the bed.” He was also electroshocked five times. “That is called ECT electroconvulsive therapy, which is like rebooting the brain. A headband, like a tight crown, was placed on my head, and when the switch was flipped, I lost consciousness.”

During his time in the hospital, three people died in the ward – an old man died of illness, another person was beaten to death, and one disappeared.

“The orderlies were the lowest people from society, and their job was to beat people. The nurses were young but extremely cruel; they didn’t treat us like humans at all.”

The hospital repeatedly drew blood from young people, but not from the elderly. Zhou thought that they were doing organ matching, preparing for potential live organ harvesting.

Zhou managed to escape to Japan on April 17, 2019.

Source: Epoch Times, August 16, 2024
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/24/8/16/n14312609.htm