China denies mental patient 'abuse'

Falun Gong: Banned in mainland China since 1999

China has angrily denied allegations it locks up political dissidents inside mental hospitals.

China's Foreign Ministry issued the denial after the World Psychiatry Association (WPA) proposed sending a mission to investigate claims that China used drugs and psychological methods to silence dissidents.

China has clamped down harshly on members of the Falun Gong sect

Many of the dissidents are thought to be members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement.

The Foreign Ministry statement said that Falun Gong members who had been "admitted" to Chinese mental hospitals were "because their families brought them in for treatment".

The statement made no comment on whether the WPA's proposed mission would be welcome.

The association approved the mission following a conference in Yokohama, Japan.

Abuse of psychiatry

A recent report written on the subject of psychiatry in China and citing official documents found that that up to 15% of people held in Chinese mental institutions may be political prisoners.

Robin Munro, the report's author, said China was using psychiatry to have political dissidents declared insane, a practice he said was similar to policy in the former Soviet Union in the early 1980s.

This policy had resulted in the country being temporarily banned from the association.

He added that the numbers had increased since Chinese authorities began cracking down on the Falun Gong movement, banned in the Chinese mainland since 1999.

Human rights activists called on the association to reconsider China's membership of the WPA if evidence of psychological abuse was uncovered.

WPA President Juan Lopez-Ibor said that China may object to some aspects of the proposed mission but was confident the mission would remain impartial.

"What we want is that the people who go have the freedom to do what they want," he told Reuters news agency.

"It would be a disaster if the visit goes there and comes back with more questions then answers."

Wrongly committed

Mr Lopez-Ibor said that up to 500 members of the sect may be wrongly committed, based on reports from non-profit groups and sect members.

Some relatives of sect members claimed that family members who were sane had been forced to take psychiatric drugs and were subjected to electric shock treatment, the Associated Press news agency reported.

Mr Lopez-Ibor said that China's treatment of Falun Gong members had long been a concern to the organisation, and had been to China in February to discuss the situation with Chinese Deputy Minister of Health Xiaowei Ma.

Human rights activists welcomed the move but said the association had not gone far enough by threatening to expel China from the WPA if the allegations were proved.