According to a Radio Free Asia report, He Jian, one of the approximately 300 signatories of Charter 08 still residing in China, was placed in a local mental hospital by authorities earlier this week.  After tweeting about his detention in “black jails” and the abuse of his mother by police, He was finally taken in to custody by government officials.  His detention comes a day after revealing that the local police had informed his mother that he needed to report to the police station. 

The use of psychiatric hospitals as make-shift detention facilities for petitioners and dissidents is a longstanding practice within the party, according to a 2002 report from Human Rights Watch and the Geneva Initiative on Psychiatry.  While detained in these facilities under the guise of mental illness, people that the Communist party views as incendiary are frequently forcibly medicated and tortured.  There is no word yet on how long he will be confined nor recognition of the government’s role in the matter.