Dissident writer Yu Xiaoming of Ningbo, Zhejiang, has been labeled mentally ill for 12 years; loses first and second appeals in lawsuit against Ningbo Zhenhai District Health Commission

On October 17, 2026, this outlet learned that dissident writer Yu Xiaoming of Ningbo, Zhejiang, has been labeled mentally ill for 12 years and lost both the first and second trials in his lawsuit against the Ningbo Zhenhai District Health Commission

Yu Xiaoming: Born in 1985, male, resident of Zhenhai District, Ningbo, Zhejiang Province. Since 2014, the local government in Ningbo has, without Yu Xiaoming’s informed consent, labeled him with six mental illness diagnoses (Yu Xiaoming has no history of psychiatric hospitalization or diagnosis) and reported him to the schizophrenia list under the “686” National Mental Health Program,” dealing a devastating blow to his life. His parents blame him, it is difficult to find work, and he often faces disdain from others.

To date, Yu Xiaoming has been labeled mentally ill for 12 years. To get rid of the mental illness label and avoid being confined to a psychiatric hospital, he has appealed multiple times. He lost at trial in June this year and lost again on appeal in September. He has faced a powerful state apparatus alone for more than a decade, and now must continue his lonely journey.

Everything behind his being labeled mentally ill stems from Yu Xiaoming’s love of writing. He began publishing dissenting views in 2011, protesting local government policies and calling for reform. His proposals were merely moderate calls for improvement, yet they brought day-after-day and year-after-year retaliation from the local government. He was taken to a police station twice and tortured, placed under house arrest by the subdistrict and community authorities multiple times, labeled mentally ill, and repeatedly threatened with confinement in a psychiatric hospital.

Later, even when surrounded by enemies on all sides, Yu Xiaoming continued to study law on his own, hoping to seek justice for himself and everyone labeled mentally ill, demand state compensation, and advance the rule of law in China. Unfortunately, every appeal ended in defeat, and the case was overlooked by the outside world for many years. It finally entered the public eye in 2025.

However, the authorities escalated their actions, sending people to threaten him at his home and initiating procedures to send him to a psychiatric hospital. He had no choice but to appeal again, and the outcome was predictable. Without any warning, the Literature City website immediately shut down the account he had maintained for years. The writing Yu Xiaoming had poured his heart and soul into for more than a decade vanished in an instant. Fortunately, he had saved a few copies in advance and stored them on other websites.

Yu Xiaoming’s friends are very worried that he may be forced to spend the rest of his life in a psychiatric hospital. Though he had no mental illness, he has been persecuted into mental illness. Such tragedies should be prevented from happening again.

This outlet will continue to follow Yu Xiaoming’s situation.