The abuse of psychiatry for political purposes has a long and sad history. Defining dissidents as "mentally ill" allows political authorities to evade many of the legal protections built into criminal codes, and oppressive governments have rarely hesitated to use that shortcut when convenient. Such abuses were commonplace in the Soviet Union; tragically, they appear to be continuing in China today. There are measures that can be used to block this behavior, but success depends on vigilance by the rest of the international community. A test case occurred late last month in Yokohama; thus far, the response has been lukewarm.

According to a recent report by Human Rights Watch, an international human rights group, and the Geneva Initiative on Psychiatry, China is using psychiatry to have political opponents declared insane. The evidence, based on Chinese psychiatric archives, reveals "a long-standing record of the misuse of psychiatry for politically repressive purposes, one that resembles in all key respects that of the former Soviet Union." The authors conclude that as many as 15 percent of people held in Chinese mental institutions may be political prisoners, a designation that includes labor activists and other individuals who complain of political persecution.

The situation has worsened in recent years mainly because of the Chinese government's response to the Falun Gong spiritual group, a quasi-religious organization that claims to have tens of millions of members in China. The group's resilience in the face of a harsh crackdown by the Beijing government -- and the international attention that has focused on the group as a result - has spurred the Chinese leadership to use more creative methods of suppression. The group was labeled "an evil cult" and banned in 1999. Since then, more than 300 detained members of Falun Gong have reportedly been detained in psychiatric institutions. This surge, writes the report's authors, is proof of the abuse of psychiatry to suppress dissent. In addition to detaining individuals, the report alleges that the Chinese government has forced individuals without mental problems to take psychiatric drugs and be subjected to electroshock treatment.