Hi, I would call it Pleo abuse, not the kind of abuse that people deal to animals or to other humans, but still abuse. As IMR and Crewella stated, it would indeed either break the motor or possibly worse, the Pleo itself, not a kind of thing you would want to do to Pleo.
Scaled and TAiled is right, I do have a pleo that has that problem and from what I know, he is the only Pleo I have heard of that is not only "Blind" can not open his eyes, but also he can not open his mouth. He is both blind and a ventriliquist, a special needs Pleo and I love him to bits. His twin brother, Gumble is the "healthy brother" who has no physical limitations. whomever owned both Argyle, and Gumble, mistreated or was very rough with Argyle. I do not know the whole story and did not ask, but both Pleos were owned by the same person and I bought them both together.It seemed strange to me that only one of the Pleos had all the problems and I have the sneaky suspicion, ( with good cause...another story) That Argyle was the Pleo that got the experimenting with and left to the younger child, children, and Gumble, the other Pleo got treated well and not handled by the Children, but probably the parents.
The motor that connects both the eye muscle, and or the mouth I presume are connected and neither one works. I asked long ago if this was something that could be fixed and was told it could not, so I have accepted ARgyle the way he is, as a very special little Pleo is is blind and can not open his mouth, but he can navigate as well as any other Pleo and still sings and makes all the sounds Pleos make. At some point I do think he will no longer work as I have noticed he has loud motor sounds at times that seem to be slowing down and if there is ever a way to fix Argyle so he can continue to operate, I would be so happy. I will keep Argyle for however long he has and even if he is different than any other Pleo, he is very special.
I would hope that nobody would ever intentionally hold a Pleos mouth shut and cause it to have the same problem that Argyle has. They may not be as "lucky" as Argyle, and may break something else that makes Pleo work and the thought of doing something intentional to abuse a Pleo, is sickening and aslo scary. Scary because Pleos lean on our emotions and to hear and or see a Pleo in distress is disturbing and there are people who enjoy seeing people upset over other animals, and beings in pain or distress, very upsetting and something to think about.( just my opinion for what it is worth.)
Here is an older photo of Argyle. He has special glasses that were made just for him. RWM