Our call for the T4 demonstration 2015

Dear friends,

Below you find our call for the May 2 demonstration, which you also find on the internet here:

It includes the important sentences in the concluding observations of the UN CRPD committee on their state report on Germany.
The German representatives in the hearing in Geneva demonstrated fierce stubborness in denying the torture in psychiatry and their other failures in complying with the CRPD. Tina Minkowitz was present and could report in English.

As the event was made public as a video stream on the internet, we could re-publish the lies of the German government representatives, depicting them with our subtitles, see here (only in German):
We distributed this youtube video widely to blame our obnoxious government!

So we will now demonstrate to the government agencies that we are aware of the concluding observations and demands of the CRPD committee by handing over a print-out of our call for this demonstration.

We heard about May 16th as the date for a World-Wide day of Protest against Electroshock. As electroshock is only very marginally used in Germany, we decided to stay with our annual protest day on May 2. So we hope that the organizers might move this international protest day in the following years to May 2 to synchronize our international activities.

Best regards
rene talbot
(Secretary of IAAPA and member of the board of a national German user and survivor organization)

Our call for the T4 demonstration 2015

On Saturday, May 2, 2015 the 21st T4 demonstration march is takes place in Berlin. The 2nd of May is the International Day of Remembrance of the crimes of Nazi psychiatry and its collaborators. It is also the day of resistance against coercive psychiatry. On this occasion we also commemorate the victims of the Berlin medical mass murder.

Starting from 1939, with the beginning of the so-called “Aktion T4”, about 300,000 people died in the psychiatric gas chambers and later by lethal injection and starvation right up to – and including – 1948.

We also remember the victims of psychiatry who were subjected to forced sterilization and torture before 1939 and those who are (up to) today tortured in psychiatric institutions and also those who, due to a so-called diagnosis, are disenfranchised, slandered and robbed of their freedom.The date of our demonstration march commemorates the announcement of the verdict of the Foucault Tribunal on May 2, 1998 in Berlin:

“We conclude that, being unwilling to renounce the use of force, violence and coercion, psychiatry is guilty of crimes against humanity: the deliberate destruction of dignity, liberty and life.”  ⁽¹⁾

The march begins at 14:00 h at the memorial plaque in the Tiergartenstrasse 4 at the entrance of the Berlin Philharmonic Hall.
After the wreath-laying ceremony we will take our demand for the recognition of General Comments No. 1 and of the State Report of the UN CRPD Committee on Germany to the Federal Government agencies that have tried to ignore both with lies⁽²⁾: The Ministry of Social Affairs and the Federal Commissioner for People with Disabilities as well as the Federal Ministry of Justice at Mohrenstrasse 37.

Thereby the federal government even goes so far as to deny the torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading compulsory treatment in psychiatry, although not only the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, but also the UN CRPD Committee accuses the Federal Republic of Germany. Quotes from the States Report of the UN CRPD Committee on 17/04/2015 ⁽³⁾ [Comments from us in italics]:

11. The Committee is concerned that both existing and new legal provisions, at the federal and the Länder level, are not always in line with the Convention. It is also concerned that the significance and scope of the rights of persons with disabilities are not sufficiently recognised in legislative processes and that, in practice, legal remedies and recognition of the Convention before the courts are not ensured.

12. The Committee recommends that the State party guarantee that:
(b) All future laws and policies are aligned to the Convention;

Equal recognition before the law (art. 12)
25. The Committee is concerned that the legal instrument of guardianship (“rechtliche Betreuung”), as outlined in and governed by the German Civil Code (BGB) is incompatible with the Convention.

26. The Committee recommends that the State party:
(a) Eliminate all forms of substituted decision-making and replace them with a system of supported decision-making, in view of the Committee’s General Comment No. 1 (2014); [Therefore § 1896, section 1a of the Civil Code must be amended: The sentence: “A guardian cannot be ordered against the free will of an adult person” must be replaced by: Guardianship may neither be established nor maintained against the declared {or natural} will of an adult person. This reform is a necessary precondition, otherwise the following sentences (b) + (c) are obsolete]

Liberty and security of the person (art. 14)
29. The Committee is concerned about the widespread practice of involuntary placement in institutions of persons with psychosocial disabilities, the lack of protection of their privacy and the lack of available data on their situation.

30. The Committee recommends that the State party take all the immediate necessary legislative, administrative and judicial measures to:
(a) Amend legislation to prohibit involuntary placement and promote alternative measures that are in keeping with articles 14, 19 and 22 of the Convention;

Freedom from torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment (art. 15)
33. The Committee is deeply concerned that the State party does not recognize the use of physical and chemical restraints, solitary confinement and other harmful practices, as acts of torture. It is further concerned by the use of physical and chemical restraints, in particular for persons with psychosocial disabilities in institutions and older persons in residential care.

34. The Committee recommends that the State party:
(a) carry out a review with a view to formally abolishing all the practices regarded as acts of torture;
(b) Prohibit the use of physical and chemical restraints in older persons’ care settings and institutions for persons with disabilities;
(c) Consider compensation for the victims of such practices.

Protecting the integrity of the person (art. 17)
38. The Committee recommends that the State party take the necessary measures, including of a legislative nature to:
(b) Ensure that all psychiatric treatments and services are always delivered with the free and informed consent of the individual concerned;

(1) www.foucault.de/englishsprache.htm
(2) www.youtube.com/watch?v=HECC-TmQAqM and www.youtube.com/watch?v=F76SJ2mfRMw
(3) Source: http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CRPD%2fC%2fDEU%2fCO%2f1&Lang=en