The Chinese practice of institutionalizing dissidents is coming more to light. This small article about a farmer Xu Lindong. who dared to challenge authority, was placed in a mental hospital and then was released after 6 1/2 years with $43,000 in damages. There is an increase in protests and activism there as well as a realization by the government that it must respond. Horrors. But some hope.
From the Times
A Chinese farmer who was imprisoned in mental hospitals for six and a half years as punishment for seeking government redress in a land dispute has been given the equivalent of $45,300 and an apology by officials of the Henan Province county that had engineered his confinement, Caijing Magazine reported. According to the magazine, which reported the settlement, the farmer, Xu Lindong, left, resisted accepting the award for seven months because it required him to abandon his right to sue the two mental hospitals that had confined him. Some human rights advocates say they believe that a growing number of agitators who seek government redress are confined in Chinese mental hospitals.
