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Political abuse of psychiatry in Russia

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In the period from the 1960s up to 1986, abuse of psychiatry for political purposes was reported to be occasional in Eastern Bloc countries such as Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. It was reported as systematic in the Soviet Union.

Background

Robert van Voren of the Global Initiative on Psychiatry says the emergence of individual cases of political abuse of psychiatry in Russia is directly related to the deterioration of the human rights situation and to the fact that on-the-spot authorities feel more carefree than they did before, and deal with undesirable elements at their own discretion. The aura of inviolability is returned to the Russian rulers, and the rule of law becomes subject to political machinations. Everything points to the fact that Russia still has the structure to exercise political abuse of psychiatry. Both political and economic nomenklatura is quite powerful and would not stop short of using illegal means, especially now when the political nomenklatura has absorbed economic power from Russian oligarchs, and the country is, in fact, ruled by the circle of people who came directly from the KGB whose capacities to establish control are limitless. According to Eduard Kuznetsov, "More than 50 percent of the key state positions are occupied by former KGB officials. The same occasionally happens in many countries monitored by the Global Initiative on Psychiatry. Psychiatry is regarded as a handy tool to solve disputes, and one can easily buy a diagnosis from a psychiatrist. In most of the countries, forensic psychiatry has changed only slightly. The strong resistance to introducing the modern practices of forensic psychiatry is not due to disparities in schools or views, but the fact that the reform of the system would mean the end of corruption. Criminals pay off their imprisonment of many years by having themselves declared insane. Wealthy husbands declare about the mental illnesses in their wives to get rid of them and yet keep control over their children. Children declare their parents and grandparents legally incapable to sell their apartments. Even medical institutions recognize their patients as insane to take their property. Today, the Russian opposition cannot expect the type of help the West gave in Soviet times. Supporting Soviet dissidents was part of anti-Soviet policy, but now pragmatism and precise calculation rules.

According to psychiatrist Sofia Dorinskaya, the situation always develops in the same way — either in the evening or at night, or in the early morning, when a person sleeps, the police break the door down in his apartment or room, handcuff and escort him directly or through a police office to a mental hospital, where the door is closed behind the person. When the door is closed, and you sit face to face with a psychiatrist, then all written by the psychiatrist will be a proof of your madness for a judge in court. Even if you just sit on a chair, say nothing, or speak reasonably, the psychiatrist can write that you threw yourself against walls and that you tried to scratch his eyes out and so on and so forth.

Discrediting the citizens by instituting far-fetched proceedings to obtain a ground for examination is a favorite tactic of officials whose interests are hurt by the active members of public. The police deliver "the ill" to a psychiatric facility, and the doctor can be sure that his facility will not be reduced, and, in general, the more "patients", the more funding. Even if the criminal case is closed due to its complete failure, it does not regard the dispensary, the person is all the same "ill". According to Doctor of Legal Sciences Vladimir Ovchinsky, regional differences in forensic psychiatric expert reports are striking. For example, in some regions of Russia, 8 or 9 percent of all examinees are pronounced sane; in other regions up to 75 percent of all examinees are pronounced sane. In some regions less than 2 percent of examinees are declared schizophrenics; in other regions up to 80 percent of examinees are declared schizophrenics. According to Vitaly Portnikov, 86 percent of Russians support the policy of their president, who renewed punitive psychiatry, and approve of declaring the healthy people the mentally ill.

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