Larisa Arap
Encyclopedia
Larisa Arap is a Russia
n opposition activist who became a victim of involuntary commitment
in the psychiatric facilities
of Murmansk
and Apatity
, soon after publishing a story about mistreatment of patients in the same hospital where she was committed in July, 2007. She was released after 46 days of confinement, on August 20, 2007.
edition of the newspaper "Marsh Nesoglasnykh" (named after the "Dissenters' March"). The newspaper is a part of the United Civil Front
, an opposition coalition led by former world chess champion Garry Kasparov
. Her story described crimes that allegedly took place at the Apatity
psychiatric facility, including the following:
of Severomorsk
for the results of a medical examination, which she had passed a month earlier to renew her driver’s license. Doctor Olga Reshet asked her whether she was the author of the "Madhouse" article. After receiving a confirmation from Arap that she was indeed the author, Dr. Reshet told her to wait outside and called militsiya
(Russian police), who detained Arap until the arrival of a psychiatric ambulance.
Arap was injected with drugs that caused her tongue to swell, weakened her, and affected her vision and balance, according to her relatives. The detention was illegal, since a decision of a judge authorizing her detention and treatment was issued subsequently, thirteen days later.
Using her mobile phone, Arap called her husband, Dmitri Tereshin, who came from Murmansk
to Severomorsk
to help her, but she had already been moved to Murmansk
. The personnel of the facility refused to give her husband information regarding the reason for the hospitalization. That same evening, their daughter Taisiya came to the facility with her husband. The duty medic, Yulya Kopyia, told them that publication of the article "Madhouse" proved Arap's insanity
. Kopyia also said that Taisiya would be put into the psychiatric hospital, too, if she insisted on obtaining documents relating to Arap's hospitalization. Taisiya was later fired from her job in a local bank for "giving too many interviews about her mother."
Two days later, on July 7, 2007, Arap’s husband and daughter were allowed to visit her at the hospital. Arap claimed that she was severely beaten by the medical personnel and had bruises all over her body. She was tied to her bed and treated with unidentified 'sedative
s'. To protest, Arap went on a five-day hunger strike
, but she was eventually fed by force
.
chose an "expert commission" headed by Yuri Savenko, president of Independent Psychiatric Association, to investigate Arap's hospitalization. According to Yuri Savenko, the forceful hospitalization of Arap was completely unwarranted. At the same time he said that Arap "showed signs of mental instability" and that Arap admitted to being briefly hospitalized for stress
and insomnia
in 2004. Savenko explained his assessment of the situation as follows: "We studied medical documents and materials related to the case, and spent an hour and a half with her. The result was that we came to the conclusion that we're dealing with a person who is in fact ill. There are no 'politics' behind this. However, the politicization of our entire life is such that these patients become the first victims of the situation.". He also said that "We're returning to this Soviet scenario when psychiatric institutions are used as punitive instruments," and added that "I call this not even punitive psychiatry but police psychiatry, when the main aim is to protect the state rather than to treat sick people."
The decision of court about the involuntary hospitalization of Arap remains in force.
After her release, Arap, who had previously suffered only from mild depression, described her ordeal:
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n opposition activist who became a victim of involuntary commitment
Involuntary commitment
Involuntary commitment or civil commitment is a legal process through which an individual with symptoms of severe mental illness is court-ordered into treatment in a hospital or in the community ....
in the psychiatric facilities
Psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals, are hospitals specializing in the treatment of serious mental disorders. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialise only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients...
of Murmansk
Murmansk
Murmansk is a city and the administrative center of Murmansk Oblast, Russia. It serves as a seaport and is located in the extreme northwest part of Russia, on the Kola Bay, from the Barents Sea on the northern shore of the Kola Peninsula, not far from Russia's borders with Norway and Finland...
and Apatity
Apatity
Apatity is a town in Murmansk Oblast, Russia, located along the Murmansk Railway between Lake Imandra and Khibiny Massif, west of Kirovsk and south of Murmansk, the administrative center of the oblast...
, soon after publishing a story about mistreatment of patients in the same hospital where she was committed in July, 2007. She was released after 46 days of confinement, on August 20, 2007.
Publication
Arap’s story, entitled “Durdom” (“Madhouse”), was prepared by journalist Ilona Novikova and published on June 8, 2007 in the MurmanskMurmansk
Murmansk is a city and the administrative center of Murmansk Oblast, Russia. It serves as a seaport and is located in the extreme northwest part of Russia, on the Kola Bay, from the Barents Sea on the northern shore of the Kola Peninsula, not far from Russia's borders with Norway and Finland...
edition of the newspaper "Marsh Nesoglasnykh" (named after the "Dissenters' March"). The newspaper is a part of the United Civil Front
United Civil Front
United Civil Front is a social movement in Russia founded and led by chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov. It is part of The Other Russia, an opposition coalition active in Moscow...
, an opposition coalition led by former world chess champion Garry Kasparov
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....
. Her story described crimes that allegedly took place at the Apatity
Apatity
Apatity is a town in Murmansk Oblast, Russia, located along the Murmansk Railway between Lake Imandra and Khibiny Massif, west of Kirovsk and south of Murmansk, the administrative center of the oblast...
psychiatric facility, including the following:
- Murder of mental patients in order to harvest their organsOrgan harvestingOrgan harvesting refers to the removal, preservation and use of human organs and tissue from the bodies of the recently deceased to be used in surgical transplants on the living...
for transplantationOrgan transplantOrgan transplantation is the moving of an organ from one body to another or from a donor site on the patient's own body, for the purpose of replacing the recipient's damaged or absent organ. The emerging field of regenerative medicine is allowing scientists and engineers to create organs to be...
. - Forcing children to kiss and massage the legs of staff members at the hospital; children who refused were punished by electroshockElectroconvulsive therapyElectroconvulsive therapy , formerly known as electroshock, is a psychiatric treatment in which seizures are electrically induced in anesthetized patients for therapeutic effect. Its mode of action is unknown...
'therapy'. - RapeRapeRape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
and tortureTortureTorture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
of people in the psychiatric wards. - Keeping sane but 'inconvenient' people in the hospital, such as a woman who complained about the rape of her daughter, or another woman who was imprisoned in the Apatity psikhushkaPsikhushkaIn the Soviet Union, systematic political abuse of psychiatry took place. Soviet psychiatric hospitals were used by the authorities as prisons in order to isolate hundreds or thousands of political prisoners from the rest of society, discredit their ideas, and break them physically and mentally...
to enable confiscation of her property.
Involuntary hospitalization
On July 5, 2007, Arap went to a clinic in the closed cityClosed city
A closed city or closed town is a settlement with travel and residency restrictions in the Soviet Union and some of its successor countries. In modern Russia, such places are officially known as "closed administrative-territorial formations" ....
of Severomorsk
Severomorsk
Severomorsk is a closed town in Murmansk Oblast, Russia, located about north of Murmansk along the Kola Bay. Population: This is the main administrative base of the Russian Northern Fleet. Severomorsk has the largest drydock on the Kola Peninsula....
for the results of a medical examination, which she had passed a month earlier to renew her driver’s license. Doctor Olga Reshet asked her whether she was the author of the "Madhouse" article. After receiving a confirmation from Arap that she was indeed the author, Dr. Reshet told her to wait outside and called militsiya
Militsiya
Militsiya or militia is used as an official name of the civilian police in several former communist states, despite its original military connotation...
(Russian police), who detained Arap until the arrival of a psychiatric ambulance.
Arap was injected with drugs that caused her tongue to swell, weakened her, and affected her vision and balance, according to her relatives. The detention was illegal, since a decision of a judge authorizing her detention and treatment was issued subsequently, thirteen days later.
Using her mobile phone, Arap called her husband, Dmitri Tereshin, who came from Murmansk
Murmansk
Murmansk is a city and the administrative center of Murmansk Oblast, Russia. It serves as a seaport and is located in the extreme northwest part of Russia, on the Kola Bay, from the Barents Sea on the northern shore of the Kola Peninsula, not far from Russia's borders with Norway and Finland...
to Severomorsk
Severomorsk
Severomorsk is a closed town in Murmansk Oblast, Russia, located about north of Murmansk along the Kola Bay. Population: This is the main administrative base of the Russian Northern Fleet. Severomorsk has the largest drydock on the Kola Peninsula....
to help her, but she had already been moved to Murmansk
Murmansk
Murmansk is a city and the administrative center of Murmansk Oblast, Russia. It serves as a seaport and is located in the extreme northwest part of Russia, on the Kola Bay, from the Barents Sea on the northern shore of the Kola Peninsula, not far from Russia's borders with Norway and Finland...
. The personnel of the facility refused to give her husband information regarding the reason for the hospitalization. That same evening, their daughter Taisiya came to the facility with her husband. The duty medic, Yulya Kopyia, told them that publication of the article "Madhouse" proved Arap's insanity
Insanity
Insanity, craziness or madness is a spectrum of behaviors characterized by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity may manifest as violations of societal norms, including becoming a danger to themselves and others, though not all such acts are considered insanity...
. Kopyia also said that Taisiya would be put into the psychiatric hospital, too, if she insisted on obtaining documents relating to Arap's hospitalization. Taisiya was later fired from her job in a local bank for "giving too many interviews about her mother."
Two days later, on July 7, 2007, Arap’s husband and daughter were allowed to visit her at the hospital. Arap claimed that she was severely beaten by the medical personnel and had bruises all over her body. She was tied to her bed and treated with unidentified 'sedative
Sedative
A sedative or tranquilizer is a substance that induces sedation by reducing irritability or excitement....
s'. To protest, Arap went on a five-day hunger strike
Hunger strike
A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance or pressure in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke feelings of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most hunger strikers will take liquids but not...
, but she was eventually fed by force
Force-feeding
Force-feeding is the practice of feeding a person or an animal against their will. "Gavage" is supplying a nutritional substance by means of a small plastic tube passed through the nose or mouth into the stomach, not explicitly 'forcibly'....
.
Court decision
On July 18, 2007, a court in Murmansk sanctioned hospitalization of Arap. The court ignored requests from Arap's husband and daughter to release her. Relatives insisted that she was not a danger to herself or society. Svetlana Lukicheva, Arap's advocate, submitted the complaint to the Regional Court. Arap's husband forwarded the complaint to the regional court and regional health care institutions.Commission
On July 30, 2007, Vladimir LukinVladimir Lukin
Vladimir Petrovich Lukin is Russian liberal political activist currently serving as the Human Rights Commissioner of Russia...
chose an "expert commission" headed by Yuri Savenko, president of Independent Psychiatric Association, to investigate Arap's hospitalization. According to Yuri Savenko, the forceful hospitalization of Arap was completely unwarranted. At the same time he said that Arap "showed signs of mental instability" and that Arap admitted to being briefly hospitalized for stress
Stress (medicine)
Stress is a term in psychology and biology, borrowed from physics and engineering and first used in the biological context in the 1930s, which has in more recent decades become commonly used in popular parlance...
and insomnia
Insomnia
Insomnia is most often defined by an individual's report of sleeping difficulties. While the term is sometimes used in sleep literature to describe a disorder demonstrated by polysomnographic evidence of disturbed sleep, insomnia is often defined as a positive response to either of two questions:...
in 2004. Savenko explained his assessment of the situation as follows: "We studied medical documents and materials related to the case, and spent an hour and a half with her. The result was that we came to the conclusion that we're dealing with a person who is in fact ill. There are no 'politics' behind this. However, the politicization of our entire life is such that these patients become the first victims of the situation.". He also said that "We're returning to this Soviet scenario when psychiatric institutions are used as punitive instruments," and added that "I call this not even punitive psychiatry but police psychiatry, when the main aim is to protect the state rather than to treat sick people."
Release
Arap was released from the hospital on August 20, but she was forced to sign an agreement to continue medical treatment, and wait for the next decision of the court. According to her, she was severely beaten and suffered spine damage in the hospital. She was told by doctors during her release that "Everything in the court is under our control. Doctors, police, and prosecutors are the same team. You have nowhere to go. ... We are letting you go, but you must think about your family."The decision of court about the involuntary hospitalization of Arap remains in force.
After her release, Arap, who had previously suffered only from mild depression, described her ordeal:
See also
- Human rights in Russian psychiatric facilities
- PsikhushkaPsikhushkaIn the Soviet Union, systematic political abuse of psychiatry took place. Soviet psychiatric hospitals were used by the authorities as prisons in order to isolate hundreds or thousands of political prisoners from the rest of society, discredit their ideas, and break them physically and mentally...
- Alexander Podrabinek
External links
- CPJ.org - 'Writer forcibly hospitalized in Russia', an official statement by the Committee to Protect JournalistsCommittee to Protect JournalistsThe Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent nonprofit organisation based in New York City that promotes press freedom and defends the rights of journalists.-History:A group of U.S...
(August 14, 2007) - E1.ru (Russian language) - Photo copied documents in the case of Larisa Arap
- EJ.ru (original publication, in Russian) - 'The triumph of punitive psychiatry in Murmansk', Alexandr PodrabinekAlexandr PodrabinekAlexandr Podrabinek is a Russian journalist, human rights activist and editor-in-chief of Prima information agency. He is a founding signatory of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism.-Dissident activities in the Soviet Union:...
, Ezhednevnyj Zhurnal (August 9, 2007) - Activist tells about torture and captivity, By David R. Sands, October 16, 2007 , The Washington TimesThe Washington TimesThe Washington Times is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. It was founded in 1982 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, and until 2010 was owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate associated with the...
- Rights Activist Tells of Detention In Russian Psychiatric Institutions By Nora Boustany, Washington Post, October 22, 2007
- EVasiljeva.LiveJournal.com (Russian) - E. Vasilyev, a confidant of Larissa Arap
- FSUMonitor.com - 'Soviet Practice Of Institutionalizing Dissidents Revived', an official statement by the Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union, Bigotry Monitor (August 10, 2007)
- Grani.ru (Russian) - List of publications related to Larisa Arap
- Grani.ru (Russian) - 'Slowgoing crime', Valeria Novodvorskaya
- Msk.ru (Russian) - Julija Latynina "access code" radio Echo of Moscow
- Telegraph.co.uk - 'Labelled mad for daring to criticise the Kremlin', Adrian Blomfield, The Daily TelegraphThe Daily TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
(August 14, 2007) - Times.co.uk - 'Putin brings back mental ward torment', Mark Franchetti (August 26, 2007)
- Larisa Arap Unprovable - Her story
Related
- Agentura.ru - Psychiatric abuse in the USSR (Historical survey, in Russian)
- Advances in the History of Psychology - Psychiatric abuse in the USSR (Historical survey, in English)