human rights statement against forced psychiatry

this is a copy of a statement that was presented to Mary Robinson, UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights, earlier this year. it was prepared by
Israeli activist Hagai Aviel and German activist Rene Talbot, and endorsed
by many others around the world.

this statement will be the basis of a great deal of human rights activism
against psychiatric torture. please take some time to read it and consider
endorsing it. you can email your endorsement to Rene at [email protected]
or to Hagai at [email protected], and i'd appreciate it if you could cc me
but that's not necessary.

fyi, the resolution mentioned in the last paragraph is available on-line at
http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/46/a46r119.htm

(also please note that paragraph 2(A) is not intended as an anti-choice
statement, i expressed concern about the wording but couldn't resolve some
complex linguistic & conceptual issues.)

Tina Minkowitz
P.O.B. 670993
Flushing, NY 11367
USA
[email protected]

here is the text:

We address all members of the human family to recognise our basic right
for self-determination as people who suffer from psychiatric
persecution, psychiatric incarceration and psychiatric torture.
We declare that:

1. Preamble

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and equal and inalienable
rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom,
justice and peace in the world,
Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in
barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of humankind, and the
advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech
and belief and freedom from fear (which consists of freedom from
arbitrary incarceration, torture and arbitrary killing) and freedom from
want has been proclaimed as the highest human aspiration,
Whereas it is essential, if a person is not to be compelled to have
recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression,
that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,
We recognise the atrocities of the systematic psychiatric mass killing
in the gas chambers of the "Aktion T4", which started in 1939 as a
medical-biological campaign in Germany, and followed by the
extermination camps in Poland, as the basis point of the following
statement on human rights. We emphasise that the defeat of those
barbarous acts, histories worst case of dehumanisation and violations of
the norms of civilisation, was also the basis for the UNO Universal
Declaration of Human Rights from 1948 after the Nuremberg trials.

2. Therefore:

A) A human being is a being conceived by another human being.

B) There is no distinction possible between the fundamental human rights
of one human being from another, no matter how unusual a person may
look, thinks and express his/her thoughts.

C) Hereby we emphasise the basic function of the articles of the UNO
Universal Declaration of Human Rights to define the basic rights of any
human being.

D) We declare the use of psychiatric vocabulary as a libel and medical
slander, biological and racial discrimination, especially when it claims
to describe a person's behaviour as caused by genetics or brain
disorder.

E) We declare as forms of torture all psychiatric persecution,
psychiatric arbitrary incarceration and psychiatrically forced bodily
acts and intrusions, such as treatment with drugs; Electroshock; psycho
- surgery; four point restraints and others. These have been
consistently defined as tortures by persons from all around the world
and through the whole existence of coercive psychiatry, regardless if a
person is deemed mentally "incompetent" by medical professionals and
that the place of the procedure is declared a "medical institution"
called a "hospital".

F) Based on the above arguments we declare psychiatric coercion to be
"fear" as it is defined in the UNO Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. Every human being has the basic right of freedom from fear.

G) We recognise psychiatry based on coercion, force and violence as a
crime against humanity since it denies individuals the status of a human
being, endowed with inalienable Human Rights, by describing their soul
in a biological - medical fashion as "ill" and having a
biological-medical "mental illness", thus legally justifying all forms
of violence against them.

H) We deny that the UNO General Assembly is entitled, by supporting this
psychiatric biological racial doctrine, to exclude a part of the human
family from being recognised as human beings. Therefore we call upon the
nations of the world to abolish the resolution 46/119 of 17 December
1991. This resolution violates the basic principles of the UNO Universal
Declaration of Human Rights from 1948. This resolution is an assault on
the inherent dignity of all members of the human family and on their
equal and inalienable rights, the foundation of freedom and justice.