CHINA: Undercover Activists Film Electroshock Treatment At Ex-Gay Torture Centers [VIDEO]

Quartz reports:

Homosexuality has not been classified as a mental illness in China since 2001, yet some clinics still offer to “cure” gay people of what they describe as a “condition.” In response, some Chinese activists have been going undercover to expose the clinics’ use of controversial practices. A recent report by the UK’s Channel 4 offers a glimpse of the somewhat terrifying methods being used, including electroshock therapy, on the promise that they will prevent homosexual desires. Such practices have been outside of the law since a Beijing court ruled in December last year that a clinic in Chongqing, a city in China’s southwest, must pay compensation to a man who claimed he was traumatized by a round of electroshock treatment. Despite the court’s ruling against so-called “gay cures” though, in China it is often the activists themselves who find themselves in trouble for highlighting the ongoing use of such practices. The activist in the Channel 4 report—referred to only as John—says he was visited by the police after conducting secret filming of electroshock therapies.