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Fundamental criticism of coercive psychiatry Over the 46 years that I have worked as a
lawyer, the majority of the clients I have defended have been people
subjected to forced psychiatric treatment. I can therefore claim to know the
fields of psychiatry, justice and their “judgements” inside out. The conclusion I have come to is that the strongholds of
psychiatry have absolutely nothing to do with “care”, the law or justice –
instead, they are nothing other than instruments of domination. If, before I established the Zürcher
Anwaltskollektiv (Collective of Zurich Lawyers) with my colleagues
Rambert and Leuzinger in 1975, I had been asked about people who are locked
away in psychiatric institutions, I would not have reacted differently to any
other averagely-informed person – and would have said “Well, they’re ill,
aren’t they?” At the Collective of Lawyers, we let ourselves be led
by two fundamental principles: never to represent an economically stronger
party against an economically weaker one, and to offer legal advice at a low
price without clients needing to make an appointment. As a result, we
currently represent the very weakest of all in the prime example of plutocracy that is
Switzerland, and of course those who are committed to
psychiatric institutions. Our legal practice, which was even open on
Saturdays to begin with, received between one and two people affected by
psychiatry every day. It was these people’s stories that we lawyers shared
with one another. When the association PSYCHEX was founded by me a quarter
of a century ago in 1987, I was the first lawyer – and practically the only
one at the time – to take on the cause of those who have been robbed of their
freedom and those who have been tortured with malicious nerve poisons. I did
this professionally and in great style in Switzerland – a country where
freedom is lauded as the highest principle. In my work with the lawyers’
collective and association, I have listened personally to the stories of well
over 10,000 such people committed to mental institutions, and have taken
hundreds through administrative and judicial habeas corpus proceedings –
including almost precisely a dozen victims who were locked up for between 10
and 40 years. In the course of all these proceedings, I had access to both
the clients’ testimonies and all files and - audiatur
et altera pars - I regularly came into contact with those who ordered
that “patients” be committed to psychiatric institutions. In the case of a client whom I managed to get released
in 1984 after he spent 23 years in the institutions of Münsterlingen and
Rheinau – despite the resistance of the institutions, the Zürich Psychiatric
Judicial Committee and the Swiss Federal Court – I even became his legal
guardian so that I could use this position to defend his surroundings against
the attempts to lock him up again. The main activity of the PSYCHEX association was
developed by me. Above all, my aim was to lift the unease surrounding the
fact that legal practitioners were not defending forced psychiatry victims at
all. I began by setting up a telephone on-call service manned on weekdays
between 8am and 5pm. At weekends, messages can be left on the answer phone
which are then answered on Monday. To name a few figures: in 2009, we were
contacted 3588 times - 3045 times by those imprisoned in institutions, and
543 times by other persons. The statistics count more than one call from the
same person on the same day as one contact. We continue to be contacted very
regularly: in 2010 it was 3577 times, last year 3479. The data from this year
already show that it will become a record year. Every
day, we hear firsthand all the details of what goes on behind high security
gates, where the public has no access – as soon as it happens. As soon as we receive a cry for help by phone, letter
or email from someone who has been subjected to forced psychiatric treatment
in any of the more than 50 institutions in Switzerland, we fax him our client
documents, which are also available on the web. We also use a
questionnaire to find out more about the person and
the facts. If it is the institutions or guardianship authorities which are
responsible, then as soon as the completed documents have been faxed back, we
file a request for release on behalf of our client and with their power of
attorney. In the case of judicial habeas corpus proceedings in
accordance with Article 5 (4) of the ECHR, we are obliged to select an
available defence lawyer from our list which
currently includes around 300 lawyers – as though the presiding judge were
seeking an official defence lawyer or free legal
representation – and send the request for release to the competent habeas
corpus court by fax straight away, naming the lawyer in question. In doing
so, we are optimally fulfilling the requirement of a speedy decision which is
enshrined in human rights law. In some cases, we have been able to bring
about habeas corpus proceedings by sending faxes alone. In the case I
mentioned above, the client had to wait a whole six months until his case was
heard. In the canton of Zurich in the 1990s, our permanent insistence on
achieving speedy decisions meant that the law now requires affected persons
to be given a hearing within four working days – which is by no means fast
enough, I might add. It is perfectly clear that a decision to commit a person
to an institution – which has serious consequences – must be subject first of
all and the same moment to a comprehensive judicial investigation with
the necessary appointment of an attorney to defend the person. Practically all the approvals of relevant complaints
sent to the Swiss Federal Court until well into the year 2000 were won by
lawyers acting under our authority. Research I have carried out into the
complaints which have been approved since then shows that these are in the
overwhelming majority, as are the lawyers from our association who defend in
these habeas corpus proceedings. The association has made it socially acceptable to
defend those who have been subjected to forced psychiatric treatment. The
rulings we have won have also provided other lawyers with solid arguments for
promising defences. The telephone service - which five association members
are currently involved in - sends out a daily record of events which I too
receive, meaning I know exactly what is happening in all of the more than
20,000 files kept by the association. As a member of the board, I respond to all the emails
the association receives each day on a voluntary basis. I step in to work in
the on-call service when it’s needed, and at weekends I sometimes turn the answer
machine off so that I can respond to calls directly. Forced psychiatry is at
work round the clock, 365 days a year. We cannot quite keep up with this
pace. Our finances only permit us to have one and a half paid positions. That is all I would like to say about my own
competences, the experience and skills garnered by the association. Now, let us poke the hornets’ nest that is forced
psychiatry! In Switzerland, this practice is marketed using the
euphemism of “care” to justify the deprivation of freedom. To the
uninitiated, this verbal construction must appear somewhat perplexing. Can the relationship between care and the deprivation
of freedom be described as anything other than complete incompability? Let’s start off with a few facts: Psychiatric institutions
were established in Switzerland in the 1880s – shortly after the last
execution for witchcraft took place. According to statistics from the Swiss
Hospitals’ Association from before the Second World War, there were 10,000
beds in such institutions, and in the year 1988, 26,686 “entries” were
recorded in 53 psychiatric institutions. More recently, these statistics are
collected by the competent Swiss Federal Office. In the year 2006, 54,072
entries were recorded in inpatient institutions, and the last available
statistics from the year 2009 show that precisely 60,511 such entries were
recorded. Water under the bridge: The statistics for 2017 show
79,081 hospitalisations. This figure is open to
interpretation. With a growth in the Swiss population of only about 30% since
1988, one would have to assume that mental illnesses within the meaning of
Art. 426 Para. 1 of the Swiss Civil Code have drastically tripled and thus
almost reached pandemic proportions. There is no question of that. The
associations PSYCHEX and PSYCHEXODUS have had to deal with more than 1000
psychiatrically immersed people every year, and on the one hand the
evaluations in the written admission decisions and on the other hand the
instructions of the persons concerned are available, which allows the
"diagnoses" of the admission authorities to be verified.
Afterwards, these verdicts of a mental illness, which are usually just a
shell, collapse like a house of cards. The tables must be turned, in that the
descriptions of those affected, most of whom live in miserable social
conditions, show that deplorable conditions could have been eliminated
through appropriate state support and that incarceration could have been
avoided. Conclusion: It is not the "psychiatric illnesses" that have
increased, but rather the authorities responsible for admitting them have
become more retarded. But as will be shown, the state has no interest
whatsoever in caring for people in such a way that compulsory psychiatric
treatment would become obsolete. One of its most important instruments of
rule would collapse miserably. As far as forced admissions are concerned, there is an
attempt to push the figure down to around 30%. This is only true to a very
limited extent. Prof. Ambros Uchtenhagen, for example, estimates the figure
at over 90%: Even in the case of so-called voluntary "entrants",
there is a more or less gentle coercion from the environment. In a DRS radio
interview, which I can still remember very well, the then Burghölz
doctor Ernst admitted that two thirds of admissions were involuntary. A more recent study is that carried out by the Swiss
Health Observatory in 2005, in which data collected from
institutions between 2000 and 2002 were evaluated. In this study, the
percentage of involuntary entries is estimated at approximately 30%. However,
the following is also stated: According to
Borghi (1991), entries are genuinely of a voluntary nature in only about 60%
of the cases recorded as being voluntary; around 40% of all entries declared
as voluntary occur as a result of a certain level of pressure from the
person’s social entourage (p. 28). This strongly correlates with our experiences. From
thousands of testimonies by clients, the PSYCHEX Association knows that many
cases of persons being committed to institutions “voluntarily” were actually
the result of threats from the admission bodies: “If you don’t go
voluntarily, we will have to force you to be admitted.” It would seem ridiculous to argue that no force is
being exercised here. Not included in the study by the Swiss Health
Observatory (SHO) – as is pointed out specifically – are the so-called
voluntary entrants against whom the institution itself has formally taken the
decision to withhold them. There are countless such cases. So, if the SHO study estimates the percentage of forced
entries at approximately 30%, and one counts the 40% of non-genuine voluntary
cases from the remaining 70%, we are already at 58% involuntary cases –
although those who have been forcibly treated and kept back after having
entered voluntarily are not included in the statistics – had they been, the
number of involuntary cases would be even higher. In the following section, I will evaluate what goes on
in institutions from the perspective of the European Convention on Human
Rights. Legal teaching and jurisdiction both claim that in the
case of all interventions concerning human rights, the principle of
proportionality should apply: A given measure must be proportionate to what
gave cause to it. In simpler terms: If the measure being taken is very
serious, then it must have been caused by something very serious. So, what does the process of committing a person to a
psychiatric institution actually involve? According to Article 5 (1) (e) of the ECHR, the person
affected must be of unsound mind. This is the first blow! Labelling a person as “of unsound mind” is equivalent
to destroying his existence. He is quite literally degraded. Nothing he says
or does is taken seriously any longer. And yet, nothing is more contentious than a psychiatric
diagnosis. Here is a small but telling detail on the subject: In the specialist information given by the Swiss Drug
Compendium about the highly potent drug Solian which is used, the following
is made known: It should be
mentioned that, in certain cases, it can be difficult to tell the difference
between undesirable side effects of the drug and symptoms of the illness
being treated. And oh wonder! Schizophrenia
is even mutating into the great bogus diagnosis of The most perfidious tactic used by the bodies of forced
psychiatry involves them consistently noting down behaviours
and statements from the persons they have labelled as mentally ill, which
have occurred while these persons have been threatened with deprivation of
freedom or actually deprived of freedom, tortured with malicious nerve
poisons, or had their other human rights limited. No differentiation is ever
made between the affected persons’ symptoms during their everyday lives, and
when they are under the influence of these drugs. Were this to be the case,
the inconvenient and fatal fact would become apparent that a diagnosed
“mental illness” was caused by persecutory crimes against human rights.
Psychiatric persecution means that mental illnesses can be constructed at
will! Yet it is perfectly normal that deprivations of
liberty trigger fierce resistance and protests. Through the robbery the
robbers clearly become enemies of the robbed. Immediately it is downright absurd
to chalk up his statements and his behavior in any way and to take this as an
occasion or to further support a deprivation of liberty. Coercive psychiatry,
however, behaves like those fathers who beat up their children and then also
beat their expressions of displeasure out of them. What it does in this
respect is monstrous: those subject to all crimes against human rights have
to accept the sinking, including all the trimmings, without a word. That is
the last straw. Everything that goes on in the admission procedures and in
the psychiatric detention centres is iatrogenic and
must not be interpreted in any way against the people concerned by the
admission authorities and, of course, by the judges of the detention courts. The way in which the term “mental illness” is misused
can also be demonstrated in terms of the interplay between the justice system
and psychiatry. Before the legislative regulation of psychiatric deprivation
of freedom in the year 1981, people who had committed no criminal offences at
all were not committed to institutions as “mentally ill” persons – instead,
they were given “administrative care” there. Mental illness only played a
murky role in guardianship law as grounds for legal incapacitation. In legal
terms, it was defined as the completely incomprehensible and bizarre behaviour of a person, which cannot be understood by
educated laypeople. When this definition was also included in the new law, it
was also decided that the habeas corpus proceedings must involve expert
witnesses – exclusively psychiatrists. This was where the justice system
began to improvise. On the one hand, it continued to operate as usual with
its legal definition, but on the other hand it waffled on about a medical
definition which in the end meant that the non-specific and therefore
non-justiciable abstractions spouted by the psychiatrists (see PSYCHEX sample
complaint, No. 4, 10 - 12) were repeated literally,
parrot-fashion. The sinister pact between judges and psychiatrists has become
a nightmare for those persecuted by psychiatry, because it makes locking
people away a purely mechanical routine procedure for which nobody feels
responsible any more: The judge can say to himself that he is simply going
along with the evaluation of the psychiatrist, while the psychiatrist is let
off the hook because, in the end, it is not his decision but that of the
judge. The inconvenient “educated layperson” has completely
lost his voice, while the demigods in white – who are sponsored by the
pharmaceutical lobby – take merciless decisions in alliance with the justice
system about the fate of those who have been labelled as psychologically
unstable. It cannot be disputed that deprivation of freedom
itself is an objective deprivation of liberty. Article 5 (1) of the ECHR is
rendered invalid for those affected. In human rights law, the grounds for such a deprivation
are then listed. In other words: No circumstance not listed there may be used
as grounds for deprivation of freedom. Now, however, Switzerland has been locking people up in
psychiatric institutions happily for decades because they are considered to
pose a danger to themselves or others. But however you read the provision –
forward, backwards, or back-to-front: These dangers are not listed. If one includes the dangers to the self and third
parties which pose a threat to public order, then the behaviour
of the bodies of forced psychiatry proves itself to be downright
schizophrenic. As substantiated by the organisations
Exit and Dignitas, every person has the right to kill him or herself. After all, how many people have already died as a
result of smoking?! If we look at the potential dangers in modern industrial
societies and take the lethal weapon that is the car, we will see that since
it has been around, more people have met their fates on the roads than were
killed on the battlefields in the Second World War – not to mention those who
were crippled or injured, gravely or otherwise. What is more, many studies show that so-called mentally
ill persons are no more dangerous than the average population. Every judge
whose decision has caused a person to be sent away to be subjected to forced
psychiatry, and who then gets into his car and drives home after a day’s
work, is much more dangerous. Despite all of this, psychiatrists who use force
continue to tick the boxes marked “danger to self and third parties” happily,
without ever adding a single word to specify the nature of these
non-justiciable abstractions. It would be more honest if, instead of using
their waffle and pieces of text shoved into the judgements, these people and
the usual deprivers of freedom would keep it short and sweet by using the
good old category “because We feel like it”... Article 6 (1) of the ECHR establishes the principles of
an impartial tribunal, and a fair and public trial for habeas corpus
proceedings. These do not apply. In the negotiations, affected persons regularly fight
their cases completely alone against the cumulative power of the doctors representing
the institution. Each of these “experts” – who are colleagues of the
institution’s doctors, I might add – tend to side with them. How could this person, who has already been deprived of
his/her freedom, relegated to the rank of “mentally ill person” thanks to the
commitment, and literally rendered mad by the limitation of all of his/her
human rights, possibly be a match for the rhetoric prowess of these demigods
in white coats? The gravest crime against the human right to a fair
trial is the fact that no proof at all is brought in these court proceedings.
What the judiciary sells as “proof” – i.e. the “expertise” of the “expert
witnesses”, is completely unfit to be presented as evidence. What do these
people do? They browse through the files and pick out whatever the pen
pushers have noted down. This cannot be allowed to happen, of course. Everything noted
in the files must be verified in accordance with the rules of proof of the Code
of Civil Procedure, all informants must be interviewed as witnesses during
the hearing and the person who has been subjected to forced psychiatry must
be given the right to a cross-examination. As things stand, the practice of punishing someone
merely for being under suspicion is still in use as it was in the era of the
Inquisition. At that time, it was enough for one person to denounce another
in order to set the wheels in motion for a court case. Today, it is enough
for a call to be made by the bodies of the forced psychiatry industry, and
the victim will end up institutionalised. This disastrous system is able to carry on because,
ever since it has existed, forced psychiatry has operated under the veil of
as much secrecy as possible. Their bastions are inaccessible to the public,
and the court proceedings are held in secret. The state pretends that it must
protect the privacy of people who have been committed to psychiatric
institutions. In reality, the opposite is true! The state has to hide its own outrageous actions. Article 7 of the ECHR prohibits punishment without law.
Anyone who disputes the criminal nature of a forced commitment along with all
the sanctions enforced in the institution which we have yet to list, must be
assumed to be on the side of the perpetrators. The proof of this is the fact
that, in its high security wings, the state also subjects people persecuted
solely on psychiatric grounds – i.e. people who are guilty of no crime – to
exactly the same conditions as those who are subject to criminal proceedings. Article 8 of the ECHR guarantees the human rights to a
private life and home. Forget it! There is no respect for the home when the commandos
break in to the rooms of the people to be committed to psychiatric
institutions as though they were carrying out a raid! I have heard
countless descriptions of such occurrences – and not only from clients.
During my visits to these institutions, which in total have lasted several weeks,
I have been able to experience the atmosphere of despair which reigns in the
wards. I have also inspected several dormitories. How can there be privacy in such places? Articles 9 and 10 of the ECHR enshrine the human rights
to freedom of thought, conscience, religion and expression. What a farce! Somebody who has been pumped full of the malicious
nerve poisons used in such institutions can neither think nor speak freely
and clearly. And to add insult
to injury, anyone who makes use of his human right to express in words his
displeasure at being treated with these poisons by the institution, will
simply receive a higher dose in return. And what do our readers think? Is it possible for
people committed to institutions to exercise the right to freedom of assembly
and association set out in Article 11 of the ECHR? The answer is obvious. The institutions are nothing
other than communities of coercion. In this climate of deprivation of freedom
and the impossibility of exercising one’s human rights, fruitful coexistence
is completely ruled out. Article 12 of the ECHR guarantees the human rights to
marry and found a family. Two of the most basic human rights are literally
suspended in the institutions. Article 13 of the ECHR gives anyone whose human rights
have been violated the right to “effective” remedy before a national
authority. Nowadays, anybody can browse the case law of the Swiss
Federal Court, which is published on the internet. Switzerland ratified the
European Convention on Human Rights in 1974. As we already know, it has been
used over a million times during the past quarter of a century. If we add the
13 years since the turn of the millennium, the total is even higher. Now, let us search for the number of cases in which the
Federal Court established that human rights violations occurred. The sobering result is that the millions of cases of
involuntary commitment were all considered to conform with
human rights. The Federal Court uses a primitive and crude trick to
deflect all complaints based on Article 13 of the ECHR. Article 5 (5) of the
ECHR and Article 429a of the Swiss Civil Code afford victims the right to
seek amends and claim compensation. The Federal Court takes the deliberate
and calculating decision to reject all complaints of this nature. It therefore comes as little surprise to see how many
such complaints have ever been approved in Switzerland since 1974. A search in the case law of the Federal Court reveals
not a single approval to date...! Switzerland as well hasn’t admitted not even
one single penal complaint against any authority of coercive psychiatry. If
someone is going to deposit such a complaint in a police station, the normal
reaction of the police is to call a psychiatrist who will send this person to the crazy house. The betrayal of human rights in Switzerland is worse
than we can ever imagine. The spirit of hypocrisy oozes out of every pore of this
country. After the crimes have been committed, lies are told in
a way reminiscent of what happened at Auschwitz. Of course, there is method in the deviousness of the
justice system. The citizens of this country are constantly reminded that
human rights are valid, and that compensation may be sought in the case of
violations. Full of trust, victims of forced psychiatry turn to the courts,
the cases go on and on, the complaints are mercilessly rejected but the
judgements are carried on, full of hope – until they reach Strasbourg. Then,
after what has often been ten years of effort, the final decision comes back: I hereby inform
you that, on (date), the European Court of Human Rights with a single judge
in session (name) decided to declare your complaint, which was lodged on
(date) under the number given above, to be inadmissible. The Court
established that the conditions set out in the Convention were not met. To
the extent that the points made in the complaint fall within its remit, the
Court has, on the basis of all the available documents, reached the
conclusion that the complaint identifies no cause to suspect that a violation
of the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Convention or its additional
protocols has occurred. This decision is final and cannot be appealed at the
Court, the Grand Chamber or any other authority. We therefore ask for your
understanding that the office of the ECHR cannot give you any further
information about the decision made by the single judge, nor can it enter
into any further correspondence with you about this matter. You will not
receive any further correspondence relating to this matter, and your
complaint file will be destroyed one year after the date of this decision.
This letter has been written in accordance with Article 52A of the Rules of
Procedure of the Court. signed,
Section Registrar Those who have already been worn down resign themselves
to their fate. Quite a few still go on to desperately seek coverage from the
media. In vain. The media are in bed with the justice system. By making every single complainant unsuccessful, the potential
for all victims to rise up together is “elegantly” quelled. And now we come to the really fundamental human rights
violations. Article 2 of the ECHR protects the right to life. Here is a quote: “A recent study shows that, for 6 out of 7 US states
investigated between 1997 and 2000, mentally ill persons recorded by the
public health system have a life expectancy which is 25-32 years shorter than
that of the general population” – Dr. Volkmar Aderhold (Member of the
renowned German Society for Social Psychiatry (DGSP)): Mortality
caused by Neuroleptics,
in Soziale Psychiatrie 4/2007.
The link to this study can also be found in the Annual Report
2009 of the PSYCHEX association. This means that anyone who, at the age of 20, is
dragged alternately through psychiatric institutions and so-called “forced
medication residences”, sees an average of at least 25 years shaved off his
or her life. A clear case of
murder in instalments! Unbelievable. It
is impossible to imagine a bigger scandal? The Nazis invented the term “Betreuung”,
which supposedly meant “care”. They claimed they were caring for the people
in the concentration camps (Sternberger/Storz/Süskind, Aus dem Wörterbuch des Unmenschen, dtv 1970, p. 24 ff). The Swiss
invented the term “Fürsorge” to supposedly mean
“care”. They claim to be caring for the people who are kept in the bastions
of psychiatry – which are equipped with high-security locks. And what is
worse? To force a person into a gas chamber disguised as a shower room and to
kill him instantly, or to execute him by giving him daily doses of malicious
nerve poisons with terrible, pathogenic effects and side effects over the
course of 30 years? And, just as a reminder, the psychiatric practices in
Switzerland are no different to those in America. We know this from having
exchanged experiences with colleagues there. The eugenicist Eugen Bleuler, a
former director of the Burghölzli clinic in Zurich, wrote the first textbook
for aspiring psychiatrists. The Burghölzli clinic enjoys worldwide renown,
and Zurich is a bastion of forced psychiatry. People travel to Switzerland
from all over the world to learn more about the subject. The following demonstrates whose brainchild the most
famous protagonists of the subject were (from Marc Rufer, Wer
ist irr? Bern 1991,
p. 99 ff.): “We must divide humanity into roughly two halves: one
upper, socially more useful, healthier or happier and one lower, socially
less useful, less healthy or less happy. If we draw a line down the centre between them, we can posit the following. Anyone who, along with the means he used to get there,
belongs unambiguously to the upper half, is obliged to reproduce in great
number; while anyone who clearly belongs to the lower half – especially
anyone who is an unsuccessful, unhappy or socially damaging person in terms
of physical infirmity, stupidity, mental illness, crimes and nervous
illnesses, should be obliged/see it as his social duty to avoid reproducing
under any circumstances, ... anyone who can be considered close to the middle
line should make sure he reproduces in moderation” (August Forel). “The further medical science advances, the better the
services are that it can offer to the individual, and the more dangerous it
becomes to the race, because it maintains the weak at the expense of the
strong; so you don’t exactly need to have super-human intelligence to see
that we should be seriously worried about the future of civilised
peoples. In this way, it seems to me that, if nothing is done to counter the
artificial protection of the weak by implementing artificial selection, the
only possibility is that the best part of humanity – the civilised
peoples – will be doomed as a result of the weakness they show towards their
own shortcomings... How this degeneration should be countered remains open to
debate. However, it is hardly conceivable that this should take any other
form than excluding the weak from reproduction. It is up to science to find
ways forward – without taking into account views and feelings which are from
a past culture and are damaging to our present situation” (Eugen
Bleuler). "A not so easy question to be answered is whether
it should be allowed to destroy lives objectively 'unworthy of living'
without the expressed request of its bearers. (...) Even in incurable
mentally ill ones suffering seriously from hallucinations and melancholic
depressions and not being able to act, to a medical colleague I would ascript the right and in serious cases the duty to
shorten—often for many years—the suffering" (Bleuler, Eugen, 1936: "Die naturwissenschaftliche
Grundlage der Ethik".
Schweizer Archiv Neurologie und Psychiatrie, Band 38, Nr.2, S. 206). Both of these
eugenicists also published works in Germany prior to the Second World War,
and doubtless contributed arguments to the “scientific” foundation of the
extermination camps there. Switzerland has never distanced itself from its own
monsters. Forel’s portrait even decorated 1000
Franc notes in Switzerland for a while. Article 3 of the ECHR prohibits torture. This prohibition does not apply in psychiatric
institutions. Anyone who refuses
to swallow the malicious nerve poisons is surrounded by up to a dozen nurses,
touched violently, pushed down and tied to a table with leather belts around
their hands, feet and waist. As soon as this has happened, the poison is
pumped into their body with a syringe. Victims often lose consciousness. This is what the District Criminal Court in Berne had
to say about the actions of a private perpetrator in 1993: “One of the cruellest and
most vile things a person can do to another is to use medicines to make him
or her unconscious against his or her will.” What is crueller and viler?
Being robbed of one’s consciousness by a single perpetrator, or by a horde of
psychiatric nurses? The effects of these chemical agents range from
drowsiness, sleepiness, tiredness, lack of energy and interest, a feeling of
indifference, reduced creativity, reduced libido, impotence, grave and severe
motor disorders, cramps, and numerous other physical complaints – to complete
unconsciousness and death. Average death rates always show variations in both
directions. One also finds older people who are subjected to forced
psychiatric treatment. They stand out because of their determination, desire
to resist, stubbornness and other similar qualities. One hears about their
strategies, which are aimed at successfully surviving what is practically the
institutions’ only “treatment concept” – i.e. pumping their victims full of
poisons. They are able to count not least on the understanding
of nurses, who are sceptical towards these courses
of treatment with poisons which are carried out with military precision.
Countless such nurses have got into contact with me or the association. It is
precisely these people, however, who tend to resign from their jobs early,
because they simply do not want to take part in these monstrous practices any
longer. Those that remain are cunning and indifferent. There is no shortage
of sadists in the institutions. The high death rate must primarily be because of those unfortunate
people who, like obedient sheep, do not resist the poisons – which are
praised as “gifts”. Even while they are still alive, they almost look like
corpses creeping through the desolate corridors behind the gates. Even once
they have been released, they obediently follow their prescriptions. The Swiss Federal Court refuses to qualify these
inhumane and humiliating treatments within and outside the institutions
correctly as torture. It is impossible for this to happen if an order has
been given by a doctor. The justification given could not be any more stupid.
Whether this is justified or not – the doctor is given a licence
to torture. The experiences of the victims do not count in the least. Who – we ask ourselves – is responsible for deciding
what amounts to torture? First and foremost, it should be the victim himself! That is perfectly clear. It should
certainly not be the perpetrators or the bodies which back them. That would
be just as absurd as if one had left it up to the Inquisition or the Nazi
criminals to decide whether torture had taken place or not. As usual, it will just be a matter of time before the
judgement of history will set the record straight. Article 4 of the ECHR prohibits forced labour. People who are officially certified as infirm and
unable to work are recklessly forced to do menial tasks. These are cleverly
camouflaged as ergotherapy. I have seen with my own
eyes how those in the institutions have been forced to count and pack screws
or fold and pack leaflets for the Free Democratic Party of Switzerland. In general, in addition to being subjected to the grave
human rights violations already listed, those who refuse to comply with the
orders of the institution’s bodies can suffer any of the following sanctions:
Being bundled off into an isolation cell, being forced to stay in their room,
being forbidden to use the phone, write, receive visitors, go out, take
holiday, smoke, having their internet use restricted etc.. Now that we have described the gravity of the situation
– which cannot be overstated – we come to the justifications given for such
occurrences. Let’s take a classic example. The father of somebody who will later be qualified as
mentally ill is a factory worker, while his mother pushes goods over a scanner
in a shop day in, day out, making sure that money flows into the coffers and
books of the company. With increasing urgency, the son is asking himself
where he should fit into today’s modern society of production, consumption
and waste disposal. An academic career is completely out of his reach. He is not exactly
inspired by the example set by his parents to decide to spend his life as a
welder, machinist, turner or doing any other job in
a workshop, as a construction worker, an accountant in a big office or in any
other subordinate role. Very hefty discussions ensue. The situation escalates. Let us just say here that, even as early as this highly
critical phase, his parents do not know what to do other than to reach for
the phone and call the emergency psychiatrist. To calm the situation, it is agreed that the boy is to
be given his own flat so that he can use his increased freedom to secure the
apprenticeship he wants to begin. But things don’t work out. Things don’t work out with
teachers or school staff. The young man is absent more and more often, and is
becoming increasingly withdrawn. Including those diagonally opposite, his flat borders
no fewer than 9 others in his tenement block. Televisions are turned off at
ten or eleven o’clock in the evening. The residents are quiet in the evenings
because they have to get up early to operate machinery, collect rubbish, sort
post, stack shelves or push buttons. But what’s that noise coming through the wall? Is it heavy
metal or rap? Whatever it is, it’s stopping the poor neighbours
from getting some sleep. All it takes is for one of them to reach for the phone. What happens then is something that I have not only
heard in thousands of client testimonies, but have also experienced first hand in the sense that people have called me and
told me that the police is at the door demanding it be opened, without giving
so much as an explanation. I then carried on talking to them until it became clear
from the noises and voices I heard that the lock had been broken and, in most
cases, a commando including two police officers, two paramedics and a
psychiatrist had forced entry. As soon as this happened, I asked the caller to give the
receiver to the police officer so that I could negotiate with him. In vain. In most cases, the phone was hung up without a
single word being said. The next day or later – because the effects of the
forcibly administered drugs prevented him from calling us – I then found out
which institution the person was committed to, either directly or from the
association’s daily records. And now for the
crucial question: is the act described in my example – causing excessive
noise at night – really a good enough reason to subject somebody to measures
which render all of his human rights invalid? Of course not! Anyone who cannot think of the obvious solution must be
a sandwich short of a picnic themselves. It is perfectly understandable
that nobody wishes to be disturbed at night. Breaking open the door and
committing the person causing the disturbance to an institution, however, is
most definitely a step too far! Causing excessive noise at night is considered a
transgression. It would be appropriate or proportionate for the police
officer in question to demand that the offender open the door so that the
matter could be discussed. If the offender refuses, this is still by no means
a good enough reason to break into the flat by force. It would be sufficient
for the police officer to explain to the offender through the door that there
had been a complaint about the excessive noise, and to give the offender a
warning at most. If another complaint of the same type were to be made, the
police should use force to break down the door if necessary before
confiscating the corpus delicti – the stereo – and reporting the
offender. When I recall all of the cases I have defended
personally before the courts – as a result of which I was aware of all the
relevant circumstances – I can say that in not a single case of a person
being committed to a psychiatric institution was this severest of measures
preceded by an event which would have given good cause for it. To anyone who objects to this statement and tells me I
should try living with a “mentally ill” person myself, I would say that I
have taken many victims to my home directly from the institution, where I
have given them shelter for months. Not once would I have dreamed of having
them committed again. Experience has shown me that for somebody to be
committed, two idiots are needed. It is enough for one of the persons in the
conflict to not behave idiotically, and the fatal commitment does not occur. When one is familiar with enough cases, the phenomenon
of forced psychiatry is easy to decrypt. We need only to find a reason behind the seemingly
inexplicable fact that in scenes such as these which play out every day, the
persons which have the misfortune to end up in institutions are those who
live in a community who call the institution at the drop of a hat, while
others – who are surrounded by people who can cope with the conflict – are
spared such treatment. We must also explain why it is the case that, whenever
a conflict between two people ends with a commitment to an institution, it is
guaranteed that it will be the party who is not well integrated into working
life who is committed, while the party who is in work will remain free. This puts us on the right track straight away. Because if we now analyse
what holds this world together at its very core, the riddle solves itself. The occurrences I have described here are brought about
by a construction which could not be any more brazen. When countries were first marketed as democracies, the
idea of democracy was not sparked like an explosion amongst the entire
population – no! – originally, it was the idea of
one person. The creator of the idea simply had the resources of power at his
disposal in order to be able to assert it. In specific terms, this happened as follows: He, with
the help of his power, like-minded people and his propaganda machine, was the
one who appointed the majority of parliamentarians, and therefore also the
governments and judges chosen by them. Minorities were more than welcome as a
smokescreen to cover up this betrayal. As soon as this had happened, he
ordered his staff to establish an issuing bank, to let every last cent of the
money printed and minted there flow into the private banks founded by him and
his entourage. These banks are all organised
as public limited companies (French sociétés anonymes).
The power of disposal is embodied by shares on which there are no names. The
founders thus remain anonymous and, even if the banks periodically throw
shares on the market to multiply their balance sheets, they take great care
to always remain in possession of the majority of shares. This allows them to
enforce all the decisions they deem appropriate against the minority
shareholders. One can therefore assume that there are a very small number of
anonymous majority shareholders who rule the world with their money. The banks do not, of course, push the hard cash and the
self-created book money, which in the meantime exceeds this amount by a
factor of about ten, over the counters as gifts but as loans including
interest obligations, above all to the entrepreneurs who, as profit-seekers,
ideologically form the hinge between the anonymous
“lords” of the earth and the "people". Via interest and compound
interest, of millions thus have become billions and of billions trillions.
Now the anonymous top villains are already heading for the quintillions. In
order to generate the exponentially exploding interest debts together with
the fat entrepreneurial profits, it is necessary to produce, tempt to consume
and to dispose of waste. The people are not only burdened with the associated
heavy labour - as consumers they must also pay the
bank interest and entrepreneurial profits added to the
products! As no reasonable and normal person wishes to be
degraded by doing all the necessary factory and menial tasks voluntarily, the
working masses must be made submissive with a system of threats. The
“elements” which do not function properly, or which cause a disturbance, are
unceremoniously deprived of their freedom for trivial reasons, before being
tortured with malicious nerve poisons. The harsh examples set with
individuals who do not comply keep the whole populace in check (deterrents
for individuals and the masses). The “care” mentioned in Swiss legislation (Article 397a
of the Swiss Civil Code; other states use similar euphemisms to cover up this
betrayal) which is meant to be given to “the mentally ill, addicts and
depraved people” in institutions, is just a euphemism. Forced psychiatry has to make people feel terrible.
Otherwise, people in institutions would feel well and would enjoy staying
there. Without the threats of forced psychiatry, who would do
slave labour? It is perfectly
clear now: forced psychiatry has absolutely nothing to do with care – it is a
pure instrument of domination. It is an industry which literally treads on
corpses. As crows do not peck out other crows’ eyes, and therefore the crow
of the justice system does not peck out the eyes of the crow of psychiatry, all
their crimes have gone unpunished until now. I know that this annihilating critique is hard to
digest because I too know what is needed before the scales fall from your
eyes. Due to a lack of knowledge about the aforementioned details, uninformed
citizens have no chance of perceiving or evaluating forced psychiatry any
differently to how I was able to 40 years ago. I will now briefly illustrate how the propaganda of
misinformation peddled by the media, who are at the service of the masters,
works – using the example of an article recently published in Beobachter
(a product of Axel Springer Schweiz AG). The title already
says a lot: The straitjacket is outdated. This is certainly
not the case! Force still dominates everyday life in the bastions of
psychiatry. The straitjacket may have been abolished, but it has been
replaced by a much more perfidious instrument – the chemical bludgeon. I have
already listed the effects of these malicious nerve poisons, which can
include death. There is no mention of these in the article written by
a certain Walter Noser. According to his waffle, over 27 innocent citizens are
forcibly committed every day. That would mean nearly 10,000 people over one
year. This is completely wrong. He bases his statements on
data which the Swiss Citizens Commission on Human Rights (with whom PSYCHEX,
which was criticised by the Beobachter
publication, has nothing to do) is meant to have distributed on flyers, and
adds that it can be assumed that the figure is roughly correct. If we cautiously assume the proportion of involuntary
commitments according to the aforementioned SHO study from 2000-2002 to be
60%, and apply this to the year 2009 with 60,000 commitments, we arrive at a
figure of 36,000. If we believe Prof. Ernst, the number is 40,000, while
Prof. Uchtenhagen estimates over 54,000. With his nearly 10,000 forced commitments, Noser has
served us up a masterpiece of his art of misinformation and misdirection. The competent critique made by the PSYCHEX association
is described by him as “abstruse”. However, I think this is a case of the pot calling the
kettle black. As an example of one of the PSYCHEX association’s abstruse
claims, he cites the following sentence: Nowhere in the world are so many people locked up as in
Switzerland. Why is this sentence meant to be abstruse? Has he
disproved it with any kind of example? No! I have been invited to present at the annual congresses
of both the ENUSP in London and the German Association of those with
Experience of Psychiatry (BPE) in Kassel. The PSYCHEX association is informed
about forced psychiatry all over the world via newsletter. We have never
heard of another national figure which is higher than that of Switzerland’s
involuntary commitments. The German medical magazine Deutsche Ärztezeitung published the following on 09/05/2012: Between 1990 and 2002, the rate of involuntary
commitments in Germany rose by 67% from 114.4 to 190.5 (per 100,000 of the population),
by 24% in the UK from 40.5 to 50.3, and by 16% in the Netherlands from 16.4
to 19.1. A fall in involuntary commitments is reported in Italy
– by 12% from 20.5 to 18.1 – and in Sweden, by 17% from 39.4 to 32.4. The
lowest rates in Europe are to be found in Portugal, with 6 persons per
100,000, while the highest can be found in Finland, with 218 per 100,000. According to the Swiss
Hospital Statistics 2009, the total rate of all voluntary and
involuntary commitments is 7.7 per 1,000 inhabitants, or 770 per 100,000. If
one takes out the 60-90% involuntary commitments, the rates range between 462
and 700 – definitely significantly higher than in the 7 European countries I
have just mentioned. A real damp squib from the Beobachter! Although this Walter Noser was well aware of the
existence of the PSYCHEX association, he did not consult any of our members.
Instead, he spoke to the head physician of Interlaken psychiatric services.
He lets this man spout claims that fewer than one
percent of all admissions result in forced treatments. When one takes
into account the fact that Walter Noser is a former psychiatric nurse, one realises that he and the head physician are foxes which
have been allowed to guard the hen house. Our association can disprove the head physician’s claim
with our own data. As has already been mentioned, we receive testimonies in
both oral and written form. When we send a client documents, we generally
send a questionnaire in which the following questions are asked, among
others: 5. Have you been forced to take medication? If
yes, which medication and in
which doses? 6. Have chemicals been injected into your body against your will? Have you been held down or chained down by institution
staff? 7. Have you been threatened with being injected
with drugs to make you unconscious if you refused to ingest the
chemicals? Have you been threatened in any other way? From both oral and written testimonies, we know that
patients across the board are forced to ingest these poisons. Of course, it is necessary to know the context here.
Nobody shouts about the function of forced psychiatry as an instrument of
domination. And yet, just as is the case with marauding monetary policy, it
is covered up with all the methods one can think of. This means that even the
staff in the institutions themselves usually doesn’t have the faintest idea
about the evil and scandalous purposes for which forced psychiatry is
misused. In order to retain a certain level of psychological stability
themselves, doctors and nurses must suppress the unpleasant and dramatic scenes
they are a part of – or believe that the patient is taking part in them
voluntarily. From those malign characters in the whole setup, one can surely
only hear lies spread intentionally. The testimonies of our clients allow us to have access
to the reality. Admittedly, it is correct that of all our questions about
forced treatment, those asking whether the person has been injected with
chemicals against his or her will and whether he or she has been held down or
chained down by staff, were answered with YES less frequently than the other
questions about force. This does not mean, however, that the question of force
has been dealt with. In this respect, it can be said that in the
institutions, the same principle of creating deterrent effect to individuals
and the masses is applied as is the case in forced psychiatry overall and in
criminal law. The following is an explanation of these terms, which
are used frequently in criminal law: Harsh examples are made of individuals
in order to deter offenders from reoffending – this is called creating a
deterrent effect to individuals. At the same time, however, the example is
also meant to send a message to the whole population that they should not act
in the same way as the individual. This is called creating a deterrent to the
masses. We all know that a bank robbery – even though it is
just about that vile thing, money – can all too easily end in the death of
the offender. The marksmen who take up their positions in such cases serve to
give the masses a drastic demonstration of what will happen to them if they
decide to try and take money from these strictly guarded coffers. In the institutions, meanwhile, those who persist in
refusing to ingest the poisons are overpowered and injected with drugs in the
aforementioned way. This process is part of daily life in the institutions,
so fellow inmates can follow the kerfuffle and listen in on the screams. Word
gets around quickly about these incidents. And it is precisely the harsh examples which are made
of these individuals which have the effect that all the others comply nolens
volens when they are required to ingest the poisons several times daily. Without these examples – these constant demonstrations
of power, the others would not accept to swallow the poisons. Thousands of descriptions have given us a very precise
idea of how this happens. “If you don’t take the medicine, we’ll have to
inject it,” is how the brutal threat goes. Most patients surrender. Those who
continue to resist are overpowered by groups of nurses. During my visits, I
have been able to observe these ghostly scenes – the rehearsed way in which
staff encircle the victims and touch him or her violently – with my own eyes. And why, indeed, are the poisons from the
pharmaceutical industry produced both as tablets and in liquid form? Our
spies – i.e. clients – can explain this too. Many patients try to trick the
staff supervising the ingestion by keeping the poisonous tablets under their
tongues and then spitting them out at the next available opportunity. This is
precisely why the pharmaceutical industry also supplies the poisons in liquid
form. Of course, veteran victims of forced psychiatry have
mastered the art of pretending to swallow poisons in liquid form. To counter
this, the institutions use the highly-feared depot injection. This involves
injecting the poisons into the body, where they are absorbed over a certain
period of time. Our clients report the most terrible things about this
process. As absorption can take place in an irregular fashion, serious
complications may ensue which often means that emergency admission to a
hospital is required. Here is one point about that. If the victim dies as a
result of the so-called “neuroleptic
maligne syndrome” or “sudden
death”, the psychiatric institution does not record this as a death, but
as a “discharge”. The way in which this Walter Noser is trying to deny
the existence of the omnipresent force used in the institutions is completely
monstrous. It is not difficult to guess the cui bono of his
blows directed at PSYCHEX. From our clients’ testimonies, the association not
only knows the conditions in the institutions inside out – it also publishes
details about them. Our homepage receives up to 1700 hits per day. It is therefore high time that the officiating masters
should decide to set the conglomerated power of the press they control in
motion against our unfiltered presentation of the reality. This will never be able to prevent the association from
laying bare the similarities that the instrument of domination which is
forced psychiatry has with the Inquisition and the Holocaust. When they occurred, the ideologies of the Inquisition
and of racial hygiene were unchallenged and impossible to challenge, while
the Inquisitors and Nazi criminals were highly respected personalities. Critics were suppressed. History never ceases to repeat itself. It is to be expected that the relevance of what I have
presented here will only be recognised once history
has passed judgement on these events. Autumn 2012
Edmund Schönenberger Barrister at law Revised 2015 / 2021 The amendment to legal guardianship law which came into
force on 01/01/2013 changed absolutely nothing. All it did was create even
more new euphemisms for violations of all human rights. It is just a new way
of expressing the same things: http://www.psychex.ch/doku/2013.pdf |
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