Do not send a child to a closed “internet-addiction school” or “special training camp”: the law bans harming body or mind to treat internet addiction, and children have already been locked up until they died

The law clearly bans treating internet addiction in ways that harm a child’s body or mind. At a special training school in Hefei, a boy just sent there was cuffed in a solitary room and died about 44 hours later. Yuzhang Academy (豫章书院) in Nanchang locked students in solitary; four people were sentenced, and when parents asked for tuition back the court did not support them.

Cost

No money, and you save the tuition. The hard part is, when the child is at their worst, parents holding back from handing them to outsiders for “closed discipline.”

Benefit

Article 68 of the Law on the Protection of Minors (未成年人保护法) says no organization or individual may intervene in minors’ internet addiction in ways that harm minors’ physical or mental health. Both cases below have court judgments. The first was in Hefei, Anhui. In August 2017, parents of an 18-year-old boy signed an agreement with a special training school to treat internet addiction. School staff took him by force, locked him in a solitary room, and cuffed both hands to the window bars. They restricted food, water, and rest, and beat him. About 44 hours later the boy died. The appraisal concluded heat, restricted posture, lack of food and drink, and trauma caused water-electrolyte disorder and death. On 31 October 2018, Hefei Intermediate Court gave the first-instance judgment. The school head was convicted of intentional injury and unlawful detention and sentenced to 16 years. Four instructors got 1 year to 8 years and 6 months. On 28 December 2018, Anhui Higher Court upheld on second instance. The second-instance ruling stated the school had no approval from the relevant departments, and none of the defendants had teaching qualifications. The second was in Nanchang, Jiangxi. Yuzhang Academy opened in 2013 and was deregistered and closed in November 2017. While open, the school took some students into a “frustration relief room” for solitary confinement with dedicated guards, three to ten days each time. On 28 April 2023, Anyuan District Court in Pingxiang retried and gave first-instance judgment: five defendants constituted unlawful detention. Four were sentenced; Xinhua’s wording was “fixed-term imprisonment ranging from two years and ten months to eleven months.” Those four were also barred for a set period from education-related work; one was exempted from criminal punishment. Parents asked for tuition and travel costs back; the court did not support them (nationwide / Anhui / Jiangxi)

Notes

Grade C because there are only individual cases, no statistics on how often such schools go wrong. The Hefei case exists only in media reports that cite the first-instance judgment and second-instance ruling; the judgment text was not found on the court website. The Yuzhang Academy case is a Xinhua report of the court pronouncement. If a child loves games, first follow item 14 of this section (when a child loves games) and see whether sleep, homework, and going out are squeezed out. If grades, sleep, and family ties all collapse and talk will not stop it, take the child to psychiatry or child psychology for diagnosis and then treatment. If already sent in, bring the child home. If the child says they were locked up or beaten, call the police. The beneficiary is the child.

Sources · 2

1. 全国人大常委会 (2024 年修正). 未成年人保护法（第六十八条）. flk.npc.gov.cn/detail?id=ff8081818f197cf00190…
2. 红星新闻 (2019-02-20). 追热点·18岁少年被铐着关禁闭两天死亡，戒网瘾学校5人获刑. static.cdsb.com/micropub/Articles/201902/5b98…（网页存档 web.archive.org/web/20261005013030/https://st…）；新华社 (2023-04-28). 江西“豫章书院案”宣判 5名被告均服判不上诉. news.cn/2023-04/28/c_1129579126.htm（网页存档 web.archive.org/web/20230428212544/http://www…）