Budapest Center Cites Russia's Abuses of People Mental Disability

Budapest - 22 October 2003. Today, the United Nations Human Rights Committee (HRC) will hear responses from the government of the Russian Federation regarding its compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). In a report sent to the HRC prior to the committee meeting, the Mental Disability Advocacy Center (MDAC) recognizes numerous areas where Russia fails to protect the rights of people with mental disabilities.

MDAC focuses special attention on the failure of the Russian government to fulfill its commitment to establish an organization to protect the rights of psychiatric patients and to assist with their complaints as required by Russian law since 1992. This failure creates a climate of impunity and inhibits the effective implementation of the ICCPR with respect to Articles 2 (ensuring ICCPR rights to all, and ensuring effective remedies for violations), Article 7 (right to be free from torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment) and Article 9 (right to liberty and security of person).

Among MDAC's recommendations are:

• To establish the independent human rights monitoring and advocacy organizations provided for under domestic law, and provide all patients under psychiatric care access to them.
• To educate and hold accountable all law enforcement, medical staff and judicial officials on the time restrictions for involuntary hospitalizations, the necessity of providing patients and their representatives with medical files and the right of patients and their representatives to attend psychiatric-judicial hearings.
• To enact measures to prevent, identify, and where occurring, punish instances of deception, intimidation or otherwise fraudulent means of obtaining a patient's permission for voluntary hospitalization.
• To provide sufficient resources to ensure patients regular access to sanitary and private toilets in all psychiatric institutions; and to prohibit the practice of extended denial of such access.
• To provide for systematic monitoring of access to means of communications, particularly telephones, by psychiatric patients, and provide sufficient resources to ensure that all facilities are capable of providing access to telephone communication.