Zhang Po's life drastically changed after an accident ended his coalmining career, leading him to rely on disability allowances. In 2024, after protesting for a raise in his allowance, he was sectioned in a psychiatric ward for 22 days, where he faced mistreatment. His case became widely known after local media coverage, raising concerns about the arbitrary nature of mental illness definitions in China. This incident reflects ongoing issues with involuntary hospitalizations, although a mental health law was passed over a decade ago to combat such abuses, indicating widespread systemic failures and limited civil rights.
I endured more than 20 days of humiliation in there. There was no phone, and my belt and shoelaces were taken away, Zhang said in a recent interview with Chinese media.
When power can arbitrarily define madness and non-madness, everyone will live in fear of disappearing!
Zhang Youmiao, no relation of Zhang Po, is still trying to process their experience of being sectioned in 2018 and 2019. I still feel upside down, says Zhang, now 26.
More than a decade after China passed a groundbreaking mental health law that was supposed to eliminate such abuses, victims and activists say that the practice of involuntary hospitalisation remains common.
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