You know -- sending dissidents to mental hospitals.

A Russian opposition activist has been sent to a psychiatric hospital by authorities a day before a planned demonstration.

Artem Basyrov's detention is the latest in a series of incidents suggesting a punitive Soviet-era practice is being revived under president Vladimir Putin.

Mr Basyrov, 20, was ordered to be held at a hospital in the central region of Mari El on November 23, a day before planned demonstrations, said Alexander Averin of the opposition National Bolshevik Party.

The party is part of the Other Russia coalition which organised the so-called Dissenters' Marches across the country this year.

Mr Basyrov ran for the local legislature as an Other Russia candidate.

Now the authorities claim to have a perfectly legitimate reason for detaining Basyrov. It does, however, sound rather fishy.

Police who originally detained him claimed he had assaulted a girl.

A local psychiatric board agreed, deciding the activist suffered from a mental illness and he was committed to the psychiatric hospital three weeks ago.

He was only transferred from an isolation ward and allowed to have visitors on Thursday, said Mikhail Klyuzhev, a National Bolshevik member from the city of Yoshkar-Ola.

If, as indicated, he had assaulted someone, why was he hospitalized instead of jailed and charged? That doesn't make sense.

Until you consider this little pattern that has developed in Russia under Putin.

His case is the latest example of journalists or opposition activists being involuntarily committed to psychiatric hospitals in Russia.

During the Soviet era, dissidents were frequently committed for protesting against Soviet policies.

Last week, Reporters Without Borders said Andrei Novikov, a reporter for a news service connected with Chechen separatist government, was released after nine months in a psychiatric hospital.

Earlier this year Larisa Arap, an Other Russia activist and journalist, spent six weeks in a psychiatric clinic.

Supporters said this was punishment for her critical reporting.

The Global Initiative on Psychiatry, a Dutch watchdog, says psychiatry continues to be used for punitive, political purposes in Russia.

In this country, we can't even get the lunatics put in a mental hospital against their will in most cases. Even the nuttiest political activists (like Cindy Sheehan, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, and many Ron Paul supporters) are free to spew their insanity and crackpot platforms -- and then claim persecution when they are forced to follow the same laws as the rest of the country. Let that serve as a pointed reminder of the fact that America has not become the police state these folks claim.

Posted by: Greg at 04:19 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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