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The killing of a Bipolar Disorder sufferer


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Thoughts on the guy who was killed in China the other day?

I think it's disgusting. China are asking the UK for an apology after they criticised their decision to execute...o_O

Absolutely not a good thing at all, it's a very vulnerable state of mind. I've lost a friend to that disease, the frame of mind on the emotional highs and lows made him do things that were completely out of character pre disease and unfortunately the low part got the better of him in the end. During the extreme highs, acting on impulse seemed to be one of the major effects.

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Abhorrent, which I think goes without saying. The amount of executions China carries out for a wide range of crimes is appalling (not that I agree with the death penalty anyway) but to do so to a mentally ill person reeks like a medeival witch trial.

Politically pretty difficult I would imagine. I don't suppose we can tell them to fuck off.

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Whilst I would disagree with the killing it wasn't BECAUSE he was Bipolar was it?!

I think we should be questioning his local council as to how someone that vulnerable could've been allowed contact with the sort of people that convinced him they could make him a pop star in China if he smuggled Heroin in for them...

If he wasn't that bad that he wasn't on the appropriate Meds and getting the appropriate care over here then aside from the "to execute, or not to execute" he should be subject to the same laws as everyone else over there.

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Whilst I would disagree with the killing it wasn't BECAUSE he was Bipolar was it?!

The execution was for drug smuggling I believe. I think the point was that when dealing with people with mental illness, our society would have taken this into consideration. Also from my very brief view of this on the TV, it seemed as though his illness hadn't been represented properly in court. The illness is not a justification for committing any crime but from what I've seen, unchecked, it can lead to some extremely irrational behaviours. In our culture, this would have been taken into consideration and part of the outcome would be to help the sufferer deal with the illness.

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The simple fact is that no one in China really cares what we think. In simple terms we've been told to go fuck ourselves.

Yeah, really. And yet the Chinese press is seething about "foreign interference" and dredging up all that crap about the opium wars, as usual. example source: Harsh justice in China: Don’t mess with us | The Economist

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I'm not saying it shouldn't be.

Maybe I read your post wrong but you seemed to say that he should still have been convicted even if he was mentally ill, or at least not so severely ill that he was not diagnosed in the UK. The fact is, again under "Chinese law", he should not have been convicted because of his illness.

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I don't agree with the death penalty full stop. But in this case it's even worse - it seems like a ploy by the Chinese to test our government. They wanted that man dead, simply to see how strong our reaction would be. I'm betting if they get away with this, it will psychologically open the door for the Chinese to get away with more without fear of retribution. Which of course makes the fact they took a man's life cruel, calculating and callous. Of course, I could be wrong - but that doesn't change the fact that what they did is disgusting.

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Maybe I read your post wrong but you seemed to say that he should still have been convicted even if he was mentally ill, or at least not so severely ill that he was not diagnosed in the UK. The fact is, again under "Chinese law", he should not have been convicted because of his illness.

He'd been diagnosed over here before this nonsense even started and he stepped on a plane to China. If his bipolar disorder was as bad as it's been made out to have been then there has been a bit of a failure in the system here in the first place as he probably shouldn't've been wandering around unsupervised. If it wasn't that bad then they can't play the mental disability card as a get out of jail free card. If his condition was being controlled by medication he's not got as much of an excuse either unless he was off his meds at the time, but why was he off his meds if he was?

I just get fed up of people playing the disability card whenever the shit hits the fan (though i'm not saying it is being played in this case).

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I think a lot of what the British Government has done here has been solely for our benefit. Calling in the Chinese ambassador twice seemed more like theatre than anything else. There was a lot of huff, puff and bluster here in an attempt to save face with the British public, and not much attempt to ramp up the pressure on the Chinese.

This just wasn't a fight we were too concerned about fighting, because I think it was decided a long time ago that we had the losing hand, and we didn't want to keep throwing more diplomatic chips into the pot.

I think the main lesson learned here is that you'd have to mental to smuggle drugs into China.

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He'd been diagnosed over here before this nonsense even started and he stepped on a plane to China. If his bipolar disorder was as bad as it's been made out to have been then there has been a bit of a failure in the system here in the first place as he probably shouldn't've been wandering around unsupervised. If it wasn't that bad then they can't play the mental disability card as a get out of jail free card. If his condition was being controlled by medication he's not got as much of an excuse either unless he was off his meds at the time, but why was he off his meds if he was?

I just get fed up of people playing the disability card whenever the shit hits the fan (though i'm not saying it is being played in this case).

It's not as cut and dry as that plus I don't think it's a case of "I've got a touch of the bipolar" and it's not playing the disability card either. It happens that people slip out of their medication and that is when stuff like this happens. It is the nature of mental health problems that sometimes people think they are better or can cope without the meds. This has been an extreme example and very unlucky that the guy was executed as a result of other people from the country he was executed in, taking advantage of his vulnerability. Who is to blame in this situation? Why are they not being chased down and executed?

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It's not as cut and dry as that plus I don't think it's a case of "I've got a touch of the bipolar" and it's not playing the disability card either. It happens that people slip out of their medication and that is when stuff like this happens. It is the nature of mental health problems that sometimes people think they are better or can cope without the meds. This has been an extreme example and very unlucky that the guy was executed as a result of other people from the country he was executed in, taking advantage of his vulnerability. Who is to blame in this situation? Why are they not being chased down and executed?

But it is as cut and dry as that. I don't think for a minute that these people saw him and on the spur of the moment put him on a plane with a large quantity of Heroin. That sort of operation takes time and in that period surely his family or care-workers would notice he was off his meds if his behaviour had changed so radically or at least noticed that there was something wrong? It's not an on/off switch when people come off medication, the chemicals are usually in their bodies for a while and there would normally be a very marked difference in behaviour that would be noticeable to people that experience it on a day to day basis with that individual.

Not enough questions are asked when things like this happen. Unfortunately the penalty for drug smuggling in a lot of Asian countries is death. We might not like that rule but we should abide by it. It's made the Chinese look pretty bad on the world stage though.

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I am pretty sure they won't give a shit, just like they don't about internet censorship, Taiwan, Tibet, human rights abuses, Tainanmen Square...

I'm pretty sure they won't either but that's their choice.

If people would abide by rules a bit more in general things would get on a bit better. I mean, it doesn't take much effort to not smuggle drugs now does it?

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If people would abide by rules a bit more in general things would get on a bit better. I mean, it doesn't take much effort to not smuggle drugs now does it?

Which is why the man's mental illness is the central focus, because there is significant doubt over whether he was aware of what was happening, and moreover if he wasn't just fitted up by some dodgy blokes who he met while travelling, as would seem to be the case.

BBC News - Death row Briton's daughter says he is 'mentally ill'

His defence team has said Mr Shaikh suffers from bipolar disorder and did not know what he was doing.

They say he was duped by a criminal gang into carrying a suitcase that did not belong to him.

His daughter said he was approached by drug smugglers in Poland and they convinced him they would make him a popstar in China.

"They recorded a song, and he can't sing, and the song itself is very very bizarre, but they convinced him that they're going to take him to the clubs in China and make him a huge popstar," said Ms Horsnell.

"He just believed he could do anything, and he could achieve anything, and if somebody had said to him that he could become a popstar, I believe he genuinely thought that."

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