29 September 2005

MDRI investigates forced electroshock including of nine-year-old.

Below is a forwarded announcement from Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI) about their report released yesterday regarding extensive human rights violations in the mental health systems of Turkey.

The report is winning global media attention. MDRI is one of 100 sponsor groups in MindFreedom International.

Please forward MDRI’s news BELOW. For more info and media coverage on the report see MDRI’s web site http://www.mdri.org or e-mail MDRI at mdri at mdri.org.

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FROM: Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI)

MDRI RELEASES SCATHING REPORT ACCUSING TURKEY OF TORTURE AGAINST CHILDREN AND ADULTS WITH MENTAL DISABILITIES

Report Receives Worldwide Press Coverage

Following a two-year investigation, Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI) released the findings on Sept. 28, 2005 in a report detailing the human rights abuses perpetrated in Turkey against children and adults with mental disabilities.

_Behind Closed Doors: Human Rights Abuses in the Psychiatric Facilities, Orphanages and Rehabilitation Centers of Turkey_, describes the widespread use of electroconvulsive or “shock” treatment (ECT) on psychiatric patients –- as young as 9 years old – without the use of anesthesia.

The investigators also found evidence of children dying from starvation, dehydration and lack of medical care in so-called residential Rehabilitation Centers.

Locked away and out of public view, people with psychiatric disorders as well as people with intellectual disabilities, such as mental retardation, are subjected to treatment practices that are tantamount to torture.

Inhuman and degrading conditions of confinement are widespread throughout the Turkish mental health system.

This report documents Turkey’s violations of the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture (ECPT), the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and other internationally accepted human rights and disability rights standards.

To read articles on this issue from _The New York Times_, _The International Herald Tribune_ and more please visit http://www.mdri.org.