When Zhang Junjie was 17 he decided to protest outside his university about rules made by China’s government. Within days he had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital and treated for schizophrenia.

Junjie is one of dozens of people identified by the BBC who were hospitalised after protesting or complaining to the authorities.

Many people we spoke to were given anti-psychotic drugs, and in some cases electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), without their consent.

There have been reports for decades that hospitalisation was being used in China as a way of detaining dissenting citizens without involving the courts. However, the BBC has found that an issue which legislation sought to resolve, has recently made a comeback.

Junjie says he was restrained and beaten by hospital staff before being forced to take medication.

His ordeal began in 2022, after he protested against China’s harsh lockdown policies. He says his professors spotted him after just five minutes and contacted his father, who took him back to the family home. He says his father called the police, and the next day – on his 18th birthday – two men drove him to what they claimed was a Covid test centre, but was actually a hospital.

“The doctors told me I had a very serious mental disease… Then they tied me to a bed. The nurses and doctors repeatedly told me, because of my views on the party and the government, then I must be mentally ill. It was terrifying,” he told the BBC World Service. He was there for 12 days.

Junjie believes his father felt forced to hand him over to the authorities because he worked for the local government.

Just over a month after being discharged, Junjie was once again arrested. Defying a fireworks ban at Chinese New Year (a measure brought in to fight air pollution) he had made a video of himself setting them off. Someone uploaded it online and police managed to link it to Junjie.

He was accused of “picking quarrels and troublemaking” – a charge frequently used to silence criticism of the Chinese government. Junjie says he was forcibly hospitalised again for more than two months.

After being discharged, Junjie was prescribed anti-psychotic drugs. We have seen the prescription – it was for Aripiprazole, used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

“Taking the medicine made me feel like my brain was quite a mess,” he says, adding that police would come to his house to check he had taken it.

Fearing a third hospitalisation, Junjie decided to leave China. He told his parents he was returning to university to pack up his room – but, in fact, he fled to New Zealand.

He didn’t say goodbye to family or friends.

Junjie is one of 59 people who the BBC has confirmed – either by speaking to them or their relatives, or by going through court documents – have been hospitalised on mental health grounds after protesting or challenging the authorities.

The issue has been acknowledged by China’s government – the country’s 2013 Mental Health Law aimed to stop this abuse, making it illegal to treat someone who is not mentally unwell. It also explicitly states psychiatric admission must be voluntary unless the patient is a danger to themselves or others.

In fact, the number of people detained in mental health hospitals against their will has recently surged, a leading Chinese lawyer told the BBC World Service. Huang Xuetao, who was involved in drafting the law, blames a weakening of civil society and a lack of checks and balances.

“I have come across lots of cases like this. The police want power while avoiding responsibility,” he says. “Anyone who knows the shortcomings of this system can abuse it.”

An activist called Jie Lijian told us he had been treated for mental illness without his consent in 2018.

Lijian says he was arrested for attending a protest demanding better pay at a factory. He says police interrogated him for three days before taking him to a psychiatric hospital.

Like Junjie, Lijian says he was prescribed anti-psychotic drugs that impaired his critical thinking.

After a week in the hospital, he says he refused any more medication. After fighting with staff, and being told he was causing trouble, Lijian was sent for ECT – a therapy which involves passing electric currents through a patient’s brain.

“The pain was from head to toe. My whole body felt like it wasn’t my own. It was really painful. Electric shock on. Then off. Electric shock on. Then off. I fainted several times. I felt like I was dying,” he says.

He says he was discharged after 52 days. He now has a part-time job in Los Angeles and is seeking asylum in the US.

In 2019, the year after Lijian says he was hospitalised, the Chinese Medical Doctor Association updated its ECT guidelines, stating it should only ever be administered with consent, and under general anaesthetic.

We wanted to find out more about the doctors’ involvement in such cases.

Speaking to foreign media such as the BBC without permission could get them into trouble, so our only option was to go undercover.

We booked phone consultations with doctors working at four hospitals which, according to our evidence, are involved with forced hospitalisations.

We used an invented story about a relative who had been hospitalised for posting anti-government comments online, and asked five doctors if they had ever come across cases of patients being sent in by police.

Four confirmed they had.

“The psychiatric department has a type of admission called ‘troublemakers’,” one doctor told us.

Another doctor, from the hospital where Junjie was held, appears to confirm his story that police continued surveillance of patients once discharged.

“The police will check up on you at home to make sure you take your medicine. If you don’t take it you might break the law again,” they said.

We approached the hospital in question for comment but it did not respond.

We have been given access to the medical records of democracy activist Song Zaimin, hospitalised for a fifth time last year, which makes it clear how closely political views appear to be tied to a psychiatric diagnosis.

“Today, he was… talking a lot, speaking incoherently, and criticising the Communist Party. Therefore, he was sent to our hospital for inpatient treatment by the police, doctors, and his local residents’ committee. This was an involuntary hospitalisation,” it says.

We asked Professor Thomas G Schulze, president-elect of the World Psychiatric Association, to review these notes. He replied:

“For what is described here, no-one should be involuntarily admitted and treated against his will. It reeks of political abuse.”

Between 2013 and 2017, more than 200 people reported they had been wrongfully hospitalised by the authorities, according to a group of citizen journalists in China who documented abuses of the Mental Health Law.

Their reporting ended in 2017, because the group’s founder was arrested and subsequently jailed.

For victims seeking justice, the legal system appears stacked against them.

A man we are calling Mr Li, who was hospitalised in 2023 after protesting against the local police, tried to take legal action against the authorities for his incarceration.

Unlike Junjie, doctors told Mr Li he wasn’t ill but then the police arranged an external psychiatrist to assess him, who diagnosed him with bipolar disorder, and he was held for 45 days.

Once released, he decided to challenge the diagnosis.

“If I don’t sue the police it’s like I accept being mentally ill. This will have a big impact on my future and my freedom because police can use it as a reason to lock me up any time,” he says.

In China, the records of anyone ever diagnosed with a serious mental health disorder could be shared with the police, and even local residents’ committees.

But Mr Li was not successful – the courts rejected his appeal.

“We hear our leaders talking about the rule of law,” he told us. “We never dreamed one day we could be locked up in a mental hospital.”

The BBC has found 112 people listed on the official website for Chinese court decisions who, between 2013 and 2024, attempted to take legal action against police, local governments or hospitals for such treatment.

Some 40% of these plaintiffs had been involved in complaints about the authorities. Only two won their cases.

And the site appears to be censored – five other cases we have investigated are missing from the database.

The issue is that the police enjoy “considerable discretion” in dealing with “troublemakers,” according to Nicola MacBean from The Rights Practice, a human rights organisation in London.

“Sending someone to a psychiatric hospital, bypassing procedures, is too easy and too useful a tool for the local authorities.”

Eyes are now on the fate of vlogger Li Yixue, who accused a police officer of sexual assault. Yixue is said to have recently been hospitalised for a second time after her social media posts talking about the experience went viral. It is reported she is now under surveillance at a hotel.

We put the findings of our investigation to the UK’s Chinese embassy. It said last year the Chinese Communist Party “reaffirmed” that it must “improve the mechanisms” around the law, which it says “explicitly prohibits unlawful detention and other methods of illegally depriving or restricting citizens’ personal freedom”.

Additional reporting by Georgina Lam and Betty Knight

People who lost thousands of pounds after the collapse of a pre-paid funeral firm have hit out at the “tiny” sums they are set to be repaid after three years of waiting.

Some 46,000 people invested in a fund to cover the future cost of their funerals with Safe Hands Plans Ltd before the company fell into administration in 2022.

The administrator for Safe Hands, FRP Advisory, has said planholders could receive initial repayments – of between 8.5p and 12.5p for every pound they lost – by the end of June.

“Getting some money back is better than nothing – but it’s a slap in the face,” Denise Hudson, who shelled out nearly £2,500, said.

The 58-year-old, from Derby, paid for a Safe Hands plan in 2017 after seeing the firm advertised on television, and said she thought her investment was “foolproof”.

She is among planholders who are owed an estimated £70.6m in total.

A major fraud investigation into the dealings of Safe Hands, and its parent company, SHP Capital Holdings Ltd, was launched in October 2023.

In October last year, in an update to creditors, FRP Advisory said there would be repayments.

Then, on 3 January, administrators confirmed planholders will get some money back – adding what people will get back is above the rate of 1p to 10p per each pound lost in typical administration cases.

But Ms Hudson said: “We paid in full. We need the full money back.

“We put our trust in people and we have all been let down.

“Everyone will still lose an awful lot.”

Ms Hudson said she had to deal with the death of her mother Daisy and brother Rupert in 2024 as she was trying to get her money back.

“[Mum] had a brilliant funeral plan and that saved us a lot of time, everything was set out,” she said.

“I thought that is what would happen with me.

“Nobody would have had to go to any trouble, everything would have been sorted out – but that wasn’t to be.”

She accused Safe Hands’s bosses of doing “an underhanded, ruthless thing”.

“It’s appalling they could take people’s hard-earned savings,” she added.

“I did think I had done everything right. I did do my homework.

“I felt embarrassed more than anything else – that I’d handed my money over and lost it. Now just anger is left.”

Since July 2022, pre-paid funeral providers have required approval to operate from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

Safe Hands was one of dozens of companies operating in the previously unregulated sector, and collapsed four months before the measures came in.

In 2017, Sandie and David Beatty, from Bingham in Nottinghamshire, paid Safe Hands £3,395 to cover the funeral costs for the first of them to die.

Mrs Beatty, 73, said they felt “angry, disappointed, sick” when the firm collapsed.

“Compared to what we put in, what we’ll get back is a tiny amount,” she said.

“When we get it, it might be enough to buy a pizza, and we’ll have a little party.

“For us, it’s not about the money now. We just want someone to be held to account.

“Our money went somewhere.”

Mr Beatty, 80, said: “There’s nothing we can do about it. We want justice but realistically we won’t get our money back.

“People have been taken for a ride and that stings.”

Aimee Geary, 50, from Anstey in Leicestershire, paid £3,000 to Safe Hands in 2017.

The NHS worker said she took out the plan because she thought funeral costs would rise in the future.

“I felt quite happy,” Ms Geary said. “Other people thought I was young [to be planning my funeral].

“They thought I was mad. I’m very organised, and I didn’t want anyone else to have a job when I’m not here.

“It’s sad that you try to plan something and it has been taken away from you.”

She was told, in 2022, she would probably get £1 out of every £100 back.

“I’m disappointed,” she added. “Somebody else has to now find the money and arrange my funeral when I’m not here because I would never buy another [funeral plan].”

Heather Mould, 77, and her partner Mike took out Safe Hands plans in 2017 – each paying £3,500.

Mrs Mould, from Allington in Lincolnshire, said: “It was quite a loss when you are on a pension.

“We were told we might get back 10p in the pound. It’s something, but it’s not a lot.

“I felt let down but we were pleased to find out before either of us had died so we could arrange something else.”

FRP told the BBC the Safe Hands administration case had been “complex” and had required extensive legal action both in the UK and abroad – including in the Cayman Islands – to trace funds that are due to creditors.

It said it had so far recovered £11.4m for planholders and was focused on getting the best return for them.

FRP said it was “working towards” making an initial distribution to planholders before the end of the second financial quarter in June 2025, and had ringfenced a minimum of £1.6m to that end.

“While we understand the current estimated return of 8.5p to 12.5p in the pound still represents a significant loss to planholders, it’s important to note this exceeds the typical returns in administration cases, where unsecured creditors usually receive between 1p to 10p in the pound,” a spokesperson said.

The administrator said its continuing efforts were running parallel to the ongoing Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation.

The spokesperson added: “We fully understand and deeply sympathise with the distress Safe Hands planholders are experiencing.

“The loss of funeral plan savings has created significant worry for many families, and we take our responsibility to recover funds for planholders extremely seriously.”

The SFO confirmed it was progressing an active criminal investigation into alleged fraud by Safe Hands Plans Limited and its parent company SHP Capital Holdings Limited.

A spokesperson said: “We recognise there is significant public interest in this case and are committed to sharing further information as soon as possible.”

Both former owners of Safe Hands – David Milson and Richard Philip Wells – were contacted for comment by the BBC but have not responded.

The world’s largest iceberg is on a collision course with a remote British island, potentially putting penguins and seals in danger.

The iceberg is spinning northwards from Antarctica towards South Georgia, a rugged British territory and wildlife haven, where it could ground and smash into pieces. It is currently 173 miles (280km) away.

Countless birds and seals died on South Georgia’s icy coves and beaches when past giant icebergs stopped them feeding.

“Icebergs are inherently dangerous. I would be extraordinarily happy if it just completely missed us,” sea captain Simon Wallace tells BBC News, speaking from the South Georgia government vessel Pharos.

Around the world a group of scientists, sailors and fishermen are anxiously checking satellite pictures to monitor the daily movements of this queen of icebergs.

It is known as A23a and is one of the world’s oldest.

It calved, or broke off, from the Filchner Ice Shelf in Antarctica in 1986 but got stuck on the seafloor and then trapped in an ocean vortex.

Finally, in December, it broke free and is now on its final journey, speeding into oblivion.

The warmer waters north of Antarctica are melting and weakening its vast cliffs that tower up to 1,312ft (400m), taller than the Shard in London.

It once measured 3,900 sq km, but the latest satellite pictures show it is slowly decaying. It is now around 3,500 sq km, roughly the size of the English county of Cornwall.

And large slabs of ice are breaking off, plunging into the waters around its edges.

A23a could break into vast segments any day, which may then hang around for years, like floating cities of ice cruising uncontrollably around South Georgia.

This isn’t the first huge iceberg to threaten South Georgia and Sandwich Islands.

In 2004 one called A38 grounded on its continental shelf, leaving dead penguin chicks and seal pups on beaches as massive ice chunks blocked their access to feeding grounds.

The territory is home to precious colonies of King Emperor penguins and millions of elephant and fur seals.

“South Georgia sits in iceberg alley so impacts are to be expected for both fisheries and wildlife, and both have a great capacity to adapt,” says Mark Belchier, a marine ecologist who advises the South Georgia government.

Sailors and fisherman say icebergs are an increasing problem. In 2023 one called A76 gave them a scare when it came close to grounding.

“Chunks of it were tipping up, so they looked like great ice towers, an ice city on the horizon,” says Mr Belchier, who saw the iceberg while at sea.

Those slabs are still lingering around the islands today.

“It is in bits from the size of several Wembley stadiums down to pieces the size of your desk,” says Andrew Newman from Argos Froyanes, a fishing company that works in South Georgia.

“Those pieces basically cover the island – we have to work our way through it,” says Captain Wallace.

The sailors on his ship must be constantly vigilant. “We have searchlights on all night to try to see ice – it can come from nowhere,” he explains.

A76 was a “gamechanger”, according to Mr Newman, with “huge impact on our operations and on keeping our vessel and crew safe”.

All three men describe a rapidly changing environment, with glacial retreat visible year-to-year, and volatile levels of sea ice.

Climate change is unlikely to have been behind the birth of A23a because it calved so long ago, before much of the impacts of rising temperatures that we are now seeing.

But giant icebergs are part of our future. As Antarctica becomes more unstable with warmer ocean and air temperatures, more vast pieces of the ice sheets will break away.

Before its time comes to an end though, A23a has left a parting gift for scientists.

A team with the British Antarctic Survey on the Sir David Attenborough research vessel found themselves close to A23a in 2023.

The scientists scrambled to exploit the rare opportunity to investigate what mega icebergs do to the environment.

The ship sailed into a crack in the iceberg’s gigantic walls, and PhD researcher Laura Taylor collected precious water samples 400m away from its cliffs.

“I saw a massive wall of ice way higher than me, as far as I could see. It has different colours in different places. Chunks were falling off – it was quite magnificent,” she explains from her lab in Cambridge where she is now analysing the samples.

Her work looks at what the impact the melt water is having on the carbon cycle in the southern ocean.

“This isn’t just water like we drink. It’s full of nutrients and chemicals, as well as tiny animals like phytoplankton frozen inside,” Ms Taylor says.

As it melts, the iceberg releases those elements into the water, changing the physics and chemistry of the ocean.

That could store more carbon deep in the ocean, as the particles sink from the surface. That would naturally lock away some of the planet’s carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to climate change.

Icebergs are notoriously unpredictable and no-one knows what exactly it will do next.

But soon the behemoth should appear, looming on the islands’ horizons, as big as the territory itself.