Chen Qingxia

A district government in Yichun, Heilongjiang Province, has taken responsibility for the illegal detention of a woman who has been held in a deserted morgue for three years, after she had served 18 months in a re-education through labor center for petitioning, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Chen was held at a re-education center after she was brought back from Beijing in 2007 by local police. She had traveled to the capital to file a petition against local authorities, claiming they mistreated her husband while he was confined to a detention center.

The husband, surnamed Song, was detained at the re-education center in 2003 after he broke through a quarantined area during the SARS outbreak. He was later confined to his home after he was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Chen told CNR she decided to lodge a petition after she saw bruises on her husband’s body and he became more mentally confused after he was released from the center. “I accused them of beating him and decided to petition.”

The woman is now confined to a wheelchair and her health has severely deteriorated. Her husband is now at a local mental hospital and the whereabouts of their son, Song Jide, is unknown. The then 12-year-old son was lost in Beijing in 2007 when his mother was brought back by local police.

The head of the publicity department of the district Party committee, Li Nan, said detaining Chen in the morgue was a humanitarian move as she had nowhere to live after being released from re-education.