Psikhushka
Psikhushka (
Soviet dissident movement and diaspora community in the West used the term. In the Soviet Union, psychiatric hospitals were often used by the authorities as prisons, in order to isolate political prisoners from the rest of society, discredit their ideas, and break them physically and mentally. As such, psikhushkas were considered a form of torture.[3] The official explanation was that no sane person would be against socialism.[4]
Psikhushkas were already in use by the end of the 1940s (see
CPSU a plan for the creation of a network of specialized "psychiatric hospitals" run by the KGB.[5]
The official Soviet psychiatric science came up with the definition of
Daniil Luntz, who was characterized by Viktor Nekipelov as "no better than the criminal doctors who performed inhuman experiments on the prisoners in Nazi concentration camps".[6]
The sane individuals who were diagnosed as
tranquilizers, and insulin) that cause long lasting side effects, and sometimes involved beatings. Nekipelov describes inhumane uses of medical procedures such as lumbar punctures
.
Notable political prisoners of psikhushkas include poet
Pyotr Grigorenko, Zhores Medvedev, Viktor Nekipelov, Valeriya Novodvorskaya, Natan Sharansky, Andrei Sinyavsky, and Anatoly Koryagin, politician Konstantin Päts, and whistle blower Larisa Arap
.
References
- ISBN 978-1-56432-191-6.
- ^ Эммануил Гушанский [Gushansky, Emmanuil] (1999). "Нужны ли правозащитники в психиатрии?" [Are defenders of human rights needed in psychiatry?]. Российский бюллетень по правам человека [Russian Bulletin on Human Rights] (in Russian) (13). Moscow: Изд-во Института прав человека [Publishing House of the Human Rights Institute]. Archived from the original on 19 January 2013. Retrieved 18 February 2013. The same article in another source: Эммануил Гушанский [Gushansky, Emmanuil] (2010). "Нужны ли правозащитники в психиатрии?" [Are defenders of human rights needed in psychiatry?] (PDF). Адвокатская палата [Advocatory chamber] (in Russian) (8). Moscow: Адвокатская палата Московской области [The Advocatory chamber of the Moscow oblast]: 23–25. Retrieved 12 July 2013.
- ^ See: Sidney Bloch and Peter Reddaway (1984). Soviet Psychiatric Abuse: The Shadow over World Psychiatry. Victor Gollancz, London.,
- ^ A statement attributed to Nikita Khrushchev [1][2]
- ISBN 0-374-52738-5.
- ^
Bibliography
- Antébi, Elizabeth (1977). Droit d'asiles en Union Soviétique. Paris: ISBN 978-2260000655.
- Applebaum, Anne (2003). Gulag: A History. New York: ISBN 978-0-7679-0056-0.
- Boulet, Marc (2001). Dans la peau d'un... Paris: Seuil. ISBN 978-2-02-038072-0.
- Fireside, Harvey (1979). Soviet Psychoprisons. Norton. ISBN 9780393012668.