Spanish Supreme Court Upholds CCHR’s Right to Speak the Truth
For more than two decades, Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) Spain has waged a relentless campaign to raise public awareness about psychiatric abuses. Their actions have included staging Industry of Death Traveling Exhibits across the country and organizing protest marches. They further sounded the alarm on a sixfold increase in prescriptions for dangerous ADHD drugs and put this disturbing fact on the agenda for the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. In a country where 16 percent of the population reported having taken a psychotropic drug in the last year and 61 percent consider mental health the nation’s greatest health concern, CCHR’s mission is vital.
The Spanish Society of Psychiatry didn’t see it that way. For years they tried to muzzle CCHR, running their own campaign to discredit the group. In a letter published in the Journal of the Spanish Association of Neuropsychiatry, one psychiatrist wrote, “It is urgent to put an end to this smear campaign,” referring to the fully fact-based Industry of Death Exhibit.
CCHR persisted, distributing materials to members of the medical and legal professions, reaching out to government officials and staging events to expose the truth about psychiatry.
The Spanish Society of Psychiatry expressed their outrage by taking CCHR to court, claiming CCHR documentaries had “injured the right to honor psychiatrists” and asking for the destruction of all CCHR documentaries, printed materials and websites and a permanent order that CCHR never talk about psychiatry again.
When CCHR provided evidence that every statement in these materials is factual and accurate, the Spanish Supreme Court unanimously dismissed the case and issued a press release, saying, “The publications deal with a matter of undoubted general interest, which is the debate on certain practices in the field of psychiatry and, in particular, on involuntary commitment, use of psychotropic drugs, especially when patients are children or adolescents, or surgical and electroconvulsive treatments.”
A UN committee invited CCHR Spain to its inaugural session in Geneva to showcase CCHR’s victory as an example for the world to follow. An expert from the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities publicly commended: “Your triumph marks a global precedent for human rights and justice.”
TAKING ACTION
Make Your Mark
As you read the stories in this issue, take note of the many ways there are to fight back against psychiatric abuse and how you can contribute to this movement:
- Informing others of the truth about psychiatric abuses in the mental health industry.
- Documenting abuse cases.
- Assisting with criminal prosecution against psychiatrists.
- Taking psychiatrists to civil court for damages caused by malpractice.
- Litigating against the institutions that trained psychiatrists in false diagnoses and dangerous abusive practices.
- Lobbying your legislature to prevent new laws that would enable coercive or harmful “mental health” practices.
- Working to enact new legislation to protect human rights in the field of mental health.
No matter your profession, no matter where you are, there is a place for you in this crusade.
Help us stop the abuse.
To find out how, please email us at advocacy@cchr.org.
END PSYCHIATRIC ABUSE
As a nonprofit mental health industry watchdog, CCHR relies on memberships and donations to carry out its mission to eradicate psychiatric violations of human rights and clean up the field of mental health. To become part of the world’s largest movement for mental health change, join the group that has helped enact more than 340 laws protecting citizens from abusive psychiatric practices.
