By Jerome A. Cohen
Chi Yin, formerly an Intermediate Court judge in China and now my colleague at NYU Law School’s US-Asia Law Institute, and I have just published a Diplomat piece on detention in China’s mental hospitals. The article follows the case of Feng Xiaoyan, who was taken to a mental hospital by her husband after being arrested, but then released, for distributing pro-democracy pamphlets. Although she was diagnosed with schizophrenia, her daughter maintains that her mother is entirely sane and was only taken to the hospital by her husband because of the threat that her political activism posed to his career. China has a law against involuntary admission except in certain instances. Yet involuntary confinement seems to occur to a disturbing extent, and patients can end up in indefinite legal limbo with little recourse. You can read the full piece here.