MandelNews.com Human Rights NEWS

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) have together launched new guidance, entitled “Mental health, human rights and legislation: guidance and practice." The WHO has reported human rights abuses and coercive practices in mental health care, which are supported by present legislation and policies, remain too common. It has been commented that "Involuntary hospitalization and treatment, unsanitary living conditions and physical, psychological, and emotional abuse characterize many mental health services across the world." Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is the WHO Director-General, has said “This new guidance will support countries to make the changes needed to provide quality mental health care that assists a person’s recovery and respects their dignity." >>>WHO   

The CCHR has reported that a July 2022 University College London study has totally debunked the unproven theory that a “chemical imbalance in the brain” is the cause of depression. However the lucrative psychiatric-pharmaceutical industry has endorsed this claim as an integral part of a mass marketing campaign which has generated antidepressant sales of about $15 billion a year. This fake campaign has lead to greater than 100 million people across the world taking antidepressants each year to treat a chemical imbalance in their brains that never existed. Mass shootings and violent acts have also been linked to antidepressants. A Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) exposé, Psychiatric Drugs Create Violence & Suicide, has detailed greter than 60 mass shootings or acts of violence which have been committed by those who were taking or withdrawing from prescribed psychotropic drugs. And aside from suicide and deaths, the carnage which is caused by antidepressants includes violence, emotional numbness and addiction. Jan Eastgate, President of CCHR International has said “Slowly, the scientific community is finally acknowledging what CCHR and others have been saying for decades—that there is no medical test to confirm a mental health diagnosis, and a chemical imbalance causing mental disorder does not exist.” CCHR 

Sexual exploitation and sexual abuse are filthy crimes that seriously undermine the wellbeing of victims while shattering their sense of self worth. The lives of victims of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse are literally at risk from physical abuse, violent rape, AIDs and other deadly infectious diseases, murder by the assailants when they're afraid their victims will turn them in to the authorities, and suicide due to the associated sense of shame. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that "Sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) represents a fundamental failure of protection." SEA is defined as  "Actual or attempted abuse of a position of vulnerability, power, or trust, for sexual purposes, including, but not limited to, profiting monetarily, socially or politically from the sexual exploitation of another." 

The Global Fund lists examples of sexual exploitation which include:

Offering money, gifts or access to services in exchange for sex acts.

Withholding or threatening to withhold services, or blackmailing in exchange for sex acts.

Providing services in exchange for sex acts.

Awarding a job in exchange for a sex act, or requiring a person to perform sex acts in order to keep and maintain a position of employment.

Sexual exploitation and sexual abuse are horrific crimes. If you are a victim of these crimes or you suspect someone you care about is be careful and file appropriate reports with your District Attorney.

Although neurotechnologies used carefully may have potential benefits for prevention and treatment of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, epilepsy, depression and anxiety, there is also a great potential for abuse. Ana Nougrères, Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy of the United Nations, has said neurotechnologies can also be used to hack into our perceptions, innermost thoughts, emotions and even our memories. Ms. Nougrères has told the UN Human Rights Council  that rapid development of  these potent devices demands an “urgent regulatory response” which includes legal and ethical protections. She has shared that there is the risk of  harvesting people’s neurodata, which is highly personal information that is derived directly from the nervous system, for many malign causes. Neurotechnologies have the capacity to alter brain activity and even to actually artificially modify human beings. This makes neurotechnologies a serious threat to human rights and the fundamental values of privacy, dignity, and autonomy. Ms. Nougrères has said “Neurotechnology has the capacity to decode brain activity, allowing access to an individual's most intimate thoughts and emotions. Without proper safeguards, this could lead to unauthorized monitoring or even coercion. Governments, corporations, or malicious actors could exploit this access to influence personal behaviours and ideologies, fundamentally eroding personal autonomy and mental integrity." There have been many reports from targeted people across the USA and in other countries that neurotechnologies are already being used for sinister activities which have lead to ruined careers, destroyed relationships, legal problems, accidents, emotional issues, erroneous psychiatric diagnoses, health issues, social isolation, and overall ruined lives of innocent targeted people. The criminal agents doing this claim there's no laws regulating the use of neurotechnologies at this time, and yet it seems there are laws against torturing people as they are sadistically doing with intent. 

There are also of course serious ethical issues to be raised about these activities. UN News 

The World Health Organization (WHO) states that "Mental health is a basic human right for all people." Every person has an inherent deserving right to the highest possible standard of mental health. This encompasses the "right to available, accessible, acceptable and good quality care; and the right to liberty, independence and inclusion in the community." If someone suffers from a mental health condition this should not be used as a reason to deprive that person of their human rights or to exclude them from decisions which have to be made about their own health. Yet, people who suffer from mental health conditions around the world experience a wide range of human rights violations.  Among these are coercive practices including involuntary admission and treatment along with seclusion and restraint. It is also common for people to be excluded from daily community activities, to be confronted with discrimination, denied basic rights necessary for healthy survival which encompass food and shelter, and even to be prohibited from voting or getting married. Initiatives must be made to create public awareness of these problems while searching for ways to reform mental healthcare. In consideration that psychiatry has proven again and again to be a discipline of chronic quackery and tyrannical abuse there should be a revolution in mental healthcare via the total abolition of psychiatry with holistic non-psychiatric practices to replace psychiatry. The psychiatrists themselves should be prosecuted for their crimes against humanity. 

On July 12, 2024, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International won a landmark case against an attempt to suppress its freedom of speech dealing with psychiatric abuse and patients’ rights in Spain. After a long judicial battle, a judgment was secured by CCHR International and CCHR Spain from the Supreme Court of Spain which resulted in a significant defeat for the Spanish Society of Psychiatry (SEP) which had claimed that CCHR’s publications, documentaries and websites in the U.S. and in Spain served to harm their “honor.” The Supreme Court of Spain rejected this and has affirmed that CCHR’s materials “deal with a matter of undoubted general interest,” are “directly connected to the public debate in a democratic society,” while also contributing to the “social debate on psychiatry.”>>>CCHR   

An inquiry in New Zealand which uncovered 200,000 children and vulnerable adults tortured in psychiatric and behavioral institutions has mirrored similar abuses which have been uncovered in the United States. The New Zealand inquiry revealed horrible abuses in psychiatric, behavioral, and disability institutions have been going on for decades.  A nightmare of people being tortured under the guise of mental health care has surfaced. The abuses have included chemical restraints, sexual assault, electric shocks, medical experimentation, starvation, beatings, and sterilization. NZ Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has told survivors "The State was supposed to care for you – but instead many of you were subjected to the most horrendous physical, emotional, mental, and sexual abuse. People in positions of authority who you should have been able to trust – failed you in the worst possible way. When you tried to speak up, those same people turned a blind eye, they covered it up, and they prevented you from seeking justice for far too long. You are heard and you are believed.”>>>CCHR  

Amnesty International has reported people who are of reproductive age across the United States are being confronted with "ongoing, confusing changes to their ability to access abortion." In the aftermath of the Dobbs decision (2022) devastating new anti-abortion laws have emerged across the country with abortions now completely or nearly completely banned in 21 states. The US Supreme Court Dobbs decision states that the right to an abortion is not confered by the Constitution. This decision overturned Roe v. Wade (1973) which had ruled the right to an abortion was basically protected by the Constitution. Pregnant women are now being forced to give birth against their desires. International human rights law takes the position that decisions about your body should be yours alone. It is a violation of a persons human rights to force that person to continue with an unwanted pregnancy. This human rights disaster can only be confronted humanely with federal protection of the right to an abortion.>>>Amnesty International 

Human Rights Watch has reported United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has been encouraging negotiations on a new international treaty dealing with lethal autonomous weapons, or killer robots. Killer robots use sensor processing instead of human inputs to select targets to attack. 

This is a very dangerous development for mankind. Guterres wants an international treaty 

“to prohibit weapons systems that function without human control or oversight and that cannot be used in compliance with international humanitarian law.” Killer robots autonomously determine when, where or against what force is applied.  The secretary-general of the United Nations has said “time is running out for the international community to take preventative action on this issue,” and has reaffirmed “the need to act urgently to preserve human control over the use of force.”>>>Human Rights Watch

CCHR activists protested abuses of children via Child Psychiatry at the 18th International Congress of the European Society for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Austria. A large banner was seen which said, “ADHD: Billion-dollar business for psychiatry—no psych drugs for our children.” The protesters pointed out that today at least 20 million children are being given psychiatric drugs internationally. These drugs can include “side effects” of homicidal or suicidal ideation. Placards have also made it clear that “Childhood is not a mental disorder.” >>>CCHR

Irene Khan, who is the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, says journalists worldwide are being confronted with more risks than ever. She says there have been online death threats and even rape threats against journalists. Between 2016-2021 there have been 455 journalists killed while doing their jobs. Targeted electronic surveillance is also being used to intimidate and shut down the work of investigative journalists.>>>United Nations Human Rights  

The Guardian has reported in a comparison internationally of 10 peer nations the health system in the United States ranks dead last. In this report released by the Commonwealth Fund it has been disclosed that Americans pay almost twice as much for healthcare and yet the system does not perform well on health equity, access to care and on outcomes. There is a human toll associated with these outcomes on a daily basis says Dr Joseph Betancourt, the president of the Commonwealth Fund. He says "It’s time we finally build a health system that delivers quality affordable healthcare for all Americans." The Commonwealth Fund is a foundation which has a focus on healthcare research and policy.>>>The Guardian