News > Akmal Shaikh faces execution in China

Created: 2009-12-22 18:22:37

Comment by Marjorie Wallace, SANE's Chief Executive, on the case of Akmal Shaikh, who is facing execution in China for carrying drugs:

"The threatened execution of Mr Akmal Shaikh by the Chinese government is not only an affront to the human rights of mentally ill people, but displays apparent ignorance of the impact that mental illness can have on a person's behaviour. People with bipolar illness, which Mr Shaikh is said to suffer from, can have thoughts, beliefs and delusions whereby they are unable to distinguish the outside world from their inner psychotic experience. In addition, the more disturbed they are, the less they are likely to have insight and thus mask or deny their condition. This makes them easy prey to criminals such as those who persuaded the 52-year old former minicab owner that he could bring about world peace by recording his pop song in a remote province of China."

"Why is there not a greater outcry, so that this sick man receives psychiatric assessment and treatment rather than a bullet to the head?"