Yesterday an Other Russia activist, the 20-year-old Artem Basyrov, was committed to a psychiatric hospital against his will - another startling example of how the Soviet-era practice of punitive psychiatry is making a comeback. Other examples of this odious practice include Andrei Novikov and Larisa Arap.
Russian Dissenter Put in Psych Hospital
By MIKE ECKEL
MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian opposition activist was committed to a psychiatric hospital before government protests, supporters said Friday — the latest in a series of incidents suggesting a punitive Soviet-era practice is being revived.
Artem Basyrov, 20, was detained by two plainclothes officers and ordered held in a hospital in the central region of Mari El on Nov. 23, a day before a planned demonstration, said Alexander Averin, of the opposition National Bolshevik Party.
The party is part of the Other Russia coalition, which organized the so-called "Dissenters Marches" around Russia. Basyrov had run for the local legislature as an Other Russia candidate.
A local psychiatric board agreed with police, who alleged that Basyrov had assaulted a girl, and concluded he was suffering from some mental illness. Basyrov was finally transferred from an isolation ward and allowed to have visitors on Thursday, said Mikhail Klyuzhev, a National Bolshevik member from the city of Yoshkar-Ola.
Basyrov was still being held in the hospital Friday.
Klyuzhev called the allegations "idiocy."
"It's all part of the hysteria before the elections," he said. Russia held its parliamentary vote Dec. 2, and will hold its presidential contest in March.
Prosecutors and other officials in Mari El could not be immediately reached for comment.
Supporters said Basyrov did not appear to have been mistreated. Another psychiatric board was slated to review Basyrov's case at the end of the month, Klyuzhev said.
His case is the latest example of journalists or opposition activists being involuntarily committed to psychiatric hospitals. During the Soviet era, dissidents were frequently committed as punishment for protesting Soviet policies.
Last week, Reporters Without Borders said Andrei Novikov, a reporter for a news service connected with Chechen separatist government, had been released after nine months in a psychiatric hospital.
This summer, Larisa Arap, an Other Russia activist and journalist, spent six weeks in a psychiatric clinic; supporters said it was punishment for her critical reporting.
The Global Initiative on Psychiatry, a Dutch watchdog group, says psychiatry continues to be used for punitive, political purposes in Russia.
Free people should condemn use of psychiatric hospitals to punish dissent in Russia
12/15/2007 - Governments, psychiatric and journalism organizations around the globe should be protesting Russia's return to throwing political dissenters into psychiatric hospitals.
This is an old Soviet-era tactic to intimidate and punish anyone who tries to raise a voice against the ruling establishment. It was common back in the days when current Russian President Vladimir Putin worked as an officer in the KGB, the Soviet secret police.
Although the Soviet era is over, Russia's move toward democracy in the 1990s under former president Boris Yeltsin has been halted and pushed backward under the authoritarian rule of Putin, whose appeal is to Russian nationalism, rather than old-time communism.
A number of Russian journalists whose work exposed problems in Russia have been assassinated during Putin's presidency, and some suspect Putin is behind the deaths.
A story reported yesterday by the Associated Press told how 20-year-old Artem Basyrov, an activist with the opposition National Bolshevik Party in the Other Russia coalition, was picked up by authorities on Nov. 23 in advance of planned demonstrations and thrown into a psychiatric hospital, where he remains.
Nine months in a psychiatric hospital was the price paid by Andrei Novikov, a reporter for a news service connected with the Chechen separatists. Other Russia coalition activist Larisa Arap was held for six weeks in a psychiatric hospital for her journalism work critical of the government, the AP story noted.
However correct, or even misguided, critics of Putin's government may be, it is unconscionable to force them into psychiatric hospitals.
Years of keeping a spotlight on such human rights violations by the former Soviet Union helped keep hope alive for dissidents and helped bring about the collapse of Soviet tyranny. That spotlight is needed today.
Freedom is every person's right, and no government should be able to deny that right because people speak freely in dissent. Putin's heavy-handed regime is violating the human rights of those who are being killed or being imprisoned in psychiatric hospitals. It is a terrible, tragic and dangerous step backward in history for Russians.
©The Morning Journal 2007
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