April 7, 2001

The American Psychiatric Association has urged the World Psychiatric Association to protest to the Chinese government about the incarceration of political dissidents and members of the Falun Gong movement in mental hospitals.

There is ... widespread abuse of psychiatry in the PRC...reports describe forcible incarceration... and of Falun Gong members in mental hospitals... forced administration of psychotropic drugs, electroshock treatment, inadequate diet and brutal beatings. Falun Gong members are told "No transformation, no release."

"The Chinese government is waging a campaign to discredit and eliminate the Falun Gong spiritualistic movement, interring obstinate members in mental asylums." (Robin Munro, senior research fellow, London University's Center for Chinese Studies).

In March of 2001, Falun Dafa Information Center in New York (www.faluninfo.net) released a 100 page psychiatric abuse report, naming 123 Falun Gong practitioners who had been sent to mental hospitals up to January 8, 2001. Actually, ...the number of those detained... number 600, fifty of whom have died in custody, so says a report from the HK-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy.