By Michael Smith (Veshengro)
BBC Monitoring provides in-depth news and comment from around the world, 24 hours a day, to help governments, businesses, policy makers, and analysts keep abreast of political, security, and defense-related developments worldwide.
Good to see this BBC service still exists though it would not surprise me if it also will fall prey to the axe that is being wielded in the BBC and Britain as a whole as far as government services are concerned, bar those monitoring the country's own citizens.
According to material that the BBC Monitoring Service has seen mention of the fact that extremists will be treated by psychiatrists has been made in several places and this has Human Rights defenders fear that the authorities' opponents will end up in ‘Loony Bins’. Not anything new in Russia, whether the Soviet Union or before.
All this is linked, in a way, but one can bet that this is just being used as an excuse, to a riot that happened a while back on Manege Square where an unauthorized rally degenerated into clashes with the forces of law and order. Let us recall that five people are being tried under this case. They are charged with calling for mass unrest and with hooliganism and using violence against representatives of the authorities.
While participants in the riot on Manege Square are seeking the appearance of high-ranking functionaries in court, the MVD is elaborating a draft law on preventive measures to deter infringements of the law. One of them is compulsory psychiatric treatment. Experts see this as the return of the punitive psychiatry of the USSR era.
Following the unrest on Manege Square, functionaries stated that it was necessary as a matter of urgency to study preventive measures against extremism.
The result is a draft federal law “On the Basic Principles of Preventive Measures To Deter Infringements of the Law in the Russian Federation,” which proposes conducting individual work with potential offenders, which has appeared on the MVD's website.
And Article 2.12 of this document includes among preventive measures to avert infringements of the law “compulsory measures of a medical nature.”
Yuriy Demidov, chief of the Russian Federation MVD Main Administration for Ensuring the Protection of Public Order, explained in an interview posted on the department's website that preventive measures of this kind include “outpatient treatment under a psychiatrist and detention in an inpatient psychiatric facility, including under intensive observation.”
Moscow Helsinki Group Chairwoman Lyudmila Alekseyeva fears that, in contemporary conditions, this clause of the law could be used in the way that it was used in the USSR. “A court could make a decision to carry out a psychiatric examination for an illegal action. But what is understood as such an action in the law in question? If by an infringement of the law dissidence is meant, we are talking about punitive psychiatric medicine, which was used in the Soviet Union,” she said in conversation with Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
The human rights defender's concern is shared by Aleksandr Yermolenko, a lawyer with the company FBK-Pravo. “The real situation in Russia is such that this clause presents a danger to citizens who are normal from the psychiatric point of view. This is because, in this country, the authorities and society are increasingly poles apart, as a result of which the situation in society is becoming more tense.” Yermolenko also noted: “An increase in punitive powers that comes from the law enforcement organs is probably an alarm signal that suggests that this measure will most likely be used against political opponents.”
The process of crime prevention is fairly complex, the expert stressed: “It should be handled not by the police, but by psychologists, sociologists, and other specialists. Today the state cannot, unfortunately, ensure the normal functioning of this system. From which it is possible to draw the conclusion that this instrument could well be used as a punitive instrument.”
In conversation with Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Eduard Rudyk, a member of the management board of the Committee for Civil Rights and a member of the Public Monitoring Commission for Moscow Oblast, described the draft law as “the most blatant violation of constitutional and international legal norms.” “It ignores the presumption of mental health. With its aid, the authorities can send off citizens whom they find inconvenient to the nuthouse.” In the expert's opinion, the hands of medics are currently tied by laws on psychiatric aid, although there are plenty of incidents of punitive psychiatry: “For example, GRU [Main Intelligence Directorate] Colonel Vladimir Kvachkov [arrested and charged with involvement in the attempted assassination of former Prime Minister Anatoliy Chubays in 2005, though eventually acquitted in August 2011] was sent for study by psychiatric experts. He could be a nationalist, or anything you like, rather than a psycho.”
Rudyk is convinced that, if such a law is introduced, there will plenty of places in the psychiatric hospitals for everyone. “Currently, there is no public monitoring of such clinics; human rights defenders cannot check them out,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta's interlocutor remarked. And he stressed: “Some psychiatrists pine for their former laurels, and can do whatever they like with people in these places.” In conversation with Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Rudyk quoted the deputy chief medical officer of a certain Moscow psychiatric clinic, who said: “We do not treat people for schizophrenia, we treat according to the verdict of the courts.”
We must, I think, be very careful of the bear that is wearing a sheep's coat and is pretending to be a cuddly animal rather that a ferocious predator. The new Russia is a little like the old and the USSR; afraid of all outsiders and of all dissent.
The Western World must thus be careful in dealing with this new Russia which is, predominately a political oligarchy with rich and powerful, often former military and intelligence service officers, running the show.
Russia has been rearming – at least in conventional weapons – its force at an unprecedented rate with the most modern developments of its weapon system, some which are so good and sophisticated that NATO countries are even buying them rather than equipment made at home or in NATO countries.
Let's beware of the Bear.
© 2011
