SUN FAWU, a farmer in Xintai in Shandong province, was terrified in October this year when he was grabbed by officials en route to Beijing to petition the government over land subsidence at his home. He never even made it to the bus - he was picked up and locked in a mental health facility.
"I am not ill! I am a petitioner!" an astonishingly frank report in the Beijing News quoted Sun telling the doctors, who replied: "We don't care if you are sick or not. If the government sent you, we are going to treat you."
The officials came from the "letters and visits" offices of the provincial capital, the first port of call for petitioners who feel they are being unjustly treated by local officials. If they fail in local attempts, petitioners often try to get to Beijing to plead their cases.
Sun spent nearly three weeks in the mental institution, during which he was bound and forcibly drugged, and was not released until he signed a guarantee that he would no longer try to petition the government.
At least 18 people have been detained this way, according to the Beijing News investigative report.
The practice of sending politically irksome troublemakers into mental health facilities has been reported in foreign media - Yu Dongyue, who threw a paint bomb at Mao Zedong's portrait on Tiananmen Square in 1989, was famously judged crazy and locked up in a mental health facility.
But for a popular Chinese paper to carry a story like this, prominently and with pictures, is remarkable. This kind of critical reporting is generally not tolerated here, despite improved attitudes to reporting of some politically sensitive issues such as disasters.
The report cited Wu Yuzhu, head of the Xintai Mental Health Centre, admitting the centre had "many" such petitioners in its care, paid for by the local government. Victims were released when they agreed to drop their complaints.
Petitioning is an ancient system dating from the imperial era, where people who felt they were being abused turned to the emperor for help, travelling to Beijing to petition him.
The tradition has continued in the communist era, but has become dangerous. Petitioners seen near Tiananmen Square are rounded up and often jailed in "petitioners' hotels", basically detention centres.
At times of year when the National People's Congress is on or other big gatherings, there is a blanket ban on petitioners coming to the capital.