Saarbruekcer Zeitung [Internationally recognized newspaper in Germany] on February 24, 2001
SZ on February 24, 2001: Until 1999, British citizen Robin Munro was the director of the Hong Kong Bureau of the human rights organization "Human Rights Watch" (HRW). During his tenure and under his efforts, HRW conducted studies and performed documentation about harvesting of organs from the bodies of executed criminals in 1994. He reported about conditions in China's orphanages in 1996. Both studies created a sensation in the international community. He wrote his study about psychiatry in China under the auspices of a Senior Research Fellow at the London School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), where he has been researching since 1999. Kai Strittmatter spoke with Robin Munro.
SZ: What causes the increase in admissions to psychiatric institutions?
Munro: It has to do with the measures the Chinese government is taking against the xx [slanderous word omitted] movement Falun Gong. [Note from the editors: http://www.faluninfo.de/faq.htm Falun Gong is a spiritual movement]. The followers of this movement present a special case. It has to do with their open and fearless protest and their unorthodox worldview. In China, for a long time there has existed an official, recognized diagnosis of mental derangement, which goes back to the practice of qigong. (A traditional method of healing). If the government is criticizing a movement such as Falun Gong, it will make use of the phenomenon of "over-diagnoses", i.e. the designation as "sick" of those who are in actuality healthy, to great advantage. This is especially so when a government criminalizes a movement such as Falun Gong.
SZ: Do the psychiatrists themselves actually believe that their patients are ill?
Munro: This question has not yet even been satisfactorily answered for the Soviet Union. Perhaps two elements play a role here: for one, the professional training. Added to that is fear as well as the wish not to deviate from the norm, not to stand out. Medicine is known as a conservative discipline. Even in other countries, there are not many doctors who will take a stand against the prevailing opinion in medicine. One thing is important to me, though: the misuse of criminal psychiatry in China seems to be limited to the criminal psychiatry [the Ankang-System]. It is my belief that the majority of the customary psychiatrists will refer to the internationally renowned and recognized Western texts and doctrines.
SZ: But the Falun Gong people all have been transferred to regular psychiatric hospitals.
Munro: Yes, that is correct. There seems to be actually a minority I hope of customary psychiatrists who take part in this. The extent of complicity is not clear.
SZ: Zhu Bangzao, the speaker for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, refuted your accusation by saying that there "clearly is no evidence."
Munro: Mr. Zhu obviously has not read my report. The overwhelming share of my gathered evidence comes from material officially produced and written in China herself:
From medical and psychiatric textbooks and professional journals, dating back several decades. "Directly from the horse's mouth," as we say in England. Do they want to dispute their own facts?
SZ: What can the rest of the world do?
Munro: The appropriate forum would be the World Psychiatric Association (WPA), in which China enjoys full membership. During the last few years, the WPA has formulated a series of binding ethical declarations, which expressly forbid such practices.
SZ: Should China be banned, as was the Soviet Union in 1983?
Munro: We cannot put the cart before the horse. That would only be a last resort. What has to be accomplished first is this: China has to answer for and declare herself to these charges. Also, the WPA must press for immediate access to Chinese psychiatry, especially to the Ankang-System, and be given access to individual patients, who must be examined by an independent expert. It could well be that some people actually display signs from whims such as mild eccentricity to real mental illness. Nevertheless none of those should have landed in a police system. They did nothing wrong. All they did was affix placards to walls or give a political speech all acts which are protected by International Rights Agreements. Those have to be set free. The others, the really ill ones, belong to a regular psychiatric clinic for treatment.
