A longtime Chinese dissident committed to a psychiatric hospital after displaying a banner in Tiananmen Square on the third anniversary of the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations has been freed after 13 years, a human rights group said yesterday.
Wang Wanxing (
The group said the release was timed ahead of a visit to China in late August by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour.
Wang was warned not to speak of his experiences or he would be returned to the asylum, Human Rights Watch said.
Wang, a Beijing worker, was arrested in Tiananmen Square on June 3, 1992, when he tried to unfurl a protest banner. He was asking the ruling Communist Party to reevaluate its condemnation of the 1989 democracy movement and to compensate him for past political persecution for criticizing the radical leaders of the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution.
Wang was diagnosed with paranoia when he entered Ankang, a facility run by Beijing police, but family and independent observers have said he is lucid and stable.
He was released briefly in 1999 but was forced to return to Ankang after he said he might publicly discuss his confinement with foreign reporters.
"Wang's release is welcome news, but it highlights the fate of hundreds of other political detainees forced into psychiatric care in China for no good medical reason," said Brad Adams, Asia director for Human Rights Watch, in a statement. "It is time for China's leaders to decide that their `modernization' drive should include an end to barbaric practices such as using psychiatric facilities and medically unnecessary drugs to punish those with different political views."
According to Human Rights Watch, Wang had kind words for some of the doctors and nurses at the asylum, but described others as being "basically sadistic" in nature.
For the first seven years, Wang said he was held in a general ward with 50 to 70 inmates but was moved to one with "severely psychotically disturbed inmates, most of whom had committed murder" during the last five years of his stay.
"The extent of patient-on-patient violence in this ward was terrifying," Human Rights Watch said in a statement, citing Wang's testimony. "He frequently had to force himself to stay awake all night to avoid sudden and unprovoked inmate attacks."
Staff would use shock treatment to punish difficult patients and make other inmates watch, the group said.
"These reports are credible and disturbing," Adams said.
Malaysia yesterday installed a motorcycle-riding billionaire sultan as its new king in lavish ceremonies for a post seen as a ballast in times of political crises. The coronation ceremony for Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim, 65, at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur followed his oath-taking in January as the country’s 17th monarch. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with a unique arrangement that sees the throne change hands every five years between the rulers of nine Malaysian states headed by centuries-old Islamic royalty. While chiefly ceremonial, the position of king has in the past few years played an increasingly important role. Royal intervention was
X-37B COMPARISON: China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like US’ vehicle, said Victoria Samson, an official at the Secure World Foundation China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said. The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it. “It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft
The Philippine Air Force must ramp up pilot training if it is to buy 20 or more multirole fighter jets as it modernizes and expands joint operations with its navy, a commander said yesterday. A day earlier US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the US “will do what is necessary” to see that the Philippines is able to resupply a ship on the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) that Manila uses to reinforce its claims to the atoll. Sullivan said the US would prefer that the Philippines conducts the resupplies of the small crew on the warship Sierra Madre,
AIRLINES RECOVERING: Two-thirds of the flights canceled on Saturday due to the faulty CrowdStrike update that hit 8.5 million devices worldwide occurred in the US As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain. Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are warning businesses and individuals around the world about new phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees or other tech specialists offering to assist those recovering from the outage. “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” Kurtz said in a statement. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant