WP: In Russia, Psychiatry Is Again a Tool Against Dissent

[kskiska]

Saturday, September 30, 2006; Page A01

DUBNA, Russia -- On March 23, police and emergency medical personnel stormed Marina Trutko's home, breaking down her apartment door and quickly subduing her with an injection of haloperidol, a powerful tranquilizer. One policeman put her 78-year-old mother, Valentina, in a storage closet while Trutko, 42, was carried out to a waiting ambulance. It took her to the nearby Psychiatric Hospital No. 14.

The former nuclear scientist, a vocal activist and public defender for several years in this city 70 miles north of Moscow, spent the next six weeks undergoing a daily regimen of injections and drugs to treat what was diagnosed as a "paranoid personality disorder."

"She is also very rude," psychiatrists noted in her case file.

In person, Trutko presents a different profile, reserved and formal as she recounts her legal and psychiatric ordeal and invokes the minutiae of Russian law without having to refer to texts. An independent evaluation found that although she did not have an "ordinary personality," she was "very gifted and creative" and displayed no psychiatric symptoms.

Trutko is new evidence that Soviet-style forced psychiatry has reemerged in Russia as a weapon to intimidate or discredit citizens who tangle with the authorities, according to human rights activists and some mental health professionals. Despite major reforms in the early 1990s, some officials are again employing this form of repression.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/29/AR2006092901592.html

[undergroundpanther]

1. It will be

A tool against Dissent in Bush's Homeland too. Just watch.


We dare not lapse into the false security of thinking it can’t happen here. It certainly could happen here, and the New Freedom Initiative brings us much closer to that reality.

Should this attempt succeed -- should racism find its way into the DSM -- then we can expect all the other politically incorrect thoughts to follow: sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, xenophobia. And we can expect their definitions to broaden accordingly. One already runs the risk of being labeled “anti-Semite” merely for disapproving of the actions of the state of Israel. And the accusation of being xenophobic has been lobbed at those who object to Arnold Schwarzenegger becoming President of the United States. Can you imagine the implications of these “politically incorrect” thoughts being classified as mental illnesses? Don’t make the mistake of thinking it can’t happen here. The process, as I say, has already begun.

The prescription will of course be mandatory; any parents who refuse to “medicate” their children will find themselves in the same position as the father in the news story below. After seeing his child’s personality deteriorate under the effect of Ritalin, he took his son off the poison and now may face prosecution -- except that, in the near future, there won’t be any “maybe” about it. Parents will face prosecution, they will have their children taken away from them, and they will be imprisoned for defending their children.

That’s how it will start. Then prisoners, whether they got into trouble for murder or burglary or marijuana possession or failure to pay a parking ticket or holding “politically incorrect” views or refusing to medicate their children, will be screened for mental illness. And they will be forcibly medicated, or implanted with a device to control their emotions (see news story below). And the average, stupid American citizen will not care, because it’s “only” being done to prisoners.

But then, one day, you will wake up and discover that you cannot get health insurance, a driver’s license, government benefits, or a job, unless you submit to mental health screening. And they will test your “normality” with all manner of diabolical high-tech gadgetry. For instance, they will analyze your brain wave activity to discern whether or not you are lying when they ask you about your finances, your sex life, your favorite television shows, your political views, your religious beliefs, and so on. It will, of course, be junk science, with results subject to any sort of interpretation, but it won’t matter -- it will be the Law that you submit, and if you are deemed “abnormal” you will be medicated or micro-chipped, and you will be “cured.” You will sit in front of the television with a catatonic stare, drooling, like the rest of the herd, watching American Idol and waving the American flag, getting all your opinions from Sean Hannity, supporting the endless War on Terrorism, supporting murder and torture, and always supporting your president.

http://www.citizinemag.com/politics/politics_0503_mackwhite.htm
http://www.mindfreedom.org/mindfreedom/implant_1.shtml
http://www.forhealthfreedom.org/Publications/Privacy/MentalScreening.html

And You can't run out of the country, there are towers to catch you..
http://english.people.com.cn/200609/23/eng20060923_305609.html

[lvx35]

2. You know I think you're right that it can happen here

but I'm not sure it will, because right now Americans don't NEED drugs or treatment to be complacent...They seem able to commit atrocities right in our face without us doing much.