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Document #1288890
ACCORD – Austrian Centre for Country of Origin and Asylum Research and Documentation (Author)
Nach einer Recherche in unserer Länderdokumentation und im Internet können wir Ihnen zu oben genannter Fragestellung Materialien zur Verfügung stellen, die unter anderem folgende Informationen enthalten:
Die International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) berichtet im Oktober 2003, dass Menschenrechtsaktivisten auf unterschiedliche Weise verfolgt würden, darunter auch die Einweisung in psychiatrische Spitäler, nachdem sie sich kritisch über die Behörden geäußert hätten:
„In Russia, human rights defenders and other NGO activists often face criminal charges and are convicted of criminal offences, declared insane, subjected to forced psychiatric examination and confinement in psychiatric hospitals, threatened with physical violence, arrested and beaten by police, and subjected to other harassment after they have criticized authorities. It is particularly dangerous for them to disclose instances of corruption. Cases of the physical ill-treatment of human rights defenders, including murders, are not properly investigated by the authorities, and perpetrators are rarely found. NGOs in the Krasnodar territory come under most severe pressure and harassment by authorities and law enforcement officials. They have faced numerous prosecutions commonly based on fabricated data, with proceedings continuing for years on end.” (IHF, Oktober 2003, S. 18-19)
Auf der Homepage des Center for Defense Information findet sich im Archiv der „Johnson’s Russia List“ ein Artikel aus der Londoner Times vom 26. August 1997, wonach es Beweise gebe, dass russische Behörden psychiatrische Einrichtungen verwenden, um gegen politische Gegner vorzugehen:
“A decade after the Soviet Union ended its notorious practice of imprisoning dissidents in psychiatric hospitals, there is disturbing evidence in Russia that the authorities are once again using mental institutions to crack down on opponents. Despite the many freedoms Russians enjoy today compared with the Soviet era, psychiatrists and human rights advocates have said that some of the old abuses common under Communist rule appear to be making a comeback. For instance, a recent case detailed by the daily Izvestia disclosed how the authorities in the town of Kaluga, southwest of Moscow, arrested and imprisoned a local official who threatened to expose corruption. Tatyana Fedyashina, an inspector in the city’s finance department who discovered a slush fund for senior officials, was arrested on February 6 by police officers and taken to the local psychiatric hospital where she was detained and sedated. Although she was subsequently released, she was ordered to report to the hospital for regular treatment or face rearrest. Her allegations of corruption have been shelved and she is desperately trying to prove her sanity and save her job.” (The Times, 26. August 1997)
Diese Praktiken hätten sich aus sowjetischer Zeit erhalten, trotz geänderter Gesetzeslage sei es für Ärzte oft schwer, sich gegen politischen Missbrauch zu wehren:
“Zhores Medvedev, a former dissident who was himself incarcerated at Kaluga’s psychiatric hospital in 1970, said that the account was typical of a type of abuse that continued in Russia. Although the Soviet Union transferred special mental hospitals from police control to that of the Health Ministry and Russia passed a new law on mental health in 1993, many of the old traditions are still applied. "In fact, the abuses never really stopped because the law on mental health is very vague and local authorities still have the power to commit whoever they like to the mental hospital," Mr Medvedev said. "In cases like this you do not need to keep your victim locked up for ever, just enough time to smear his character." With the entire health service under desperate financial strain and dependent on local authorities for funding, it is difficult for doctors to challenge the power of the local administration. Mr Medvedev, who now lives in London, said that the system was also open to abuse by criminals, who could bribe local authorities to register them as patients of a psychiatric hospital and thereby avoid trial in a criminal court. Yuri Savenko, the head of the Association of Independent Psychiatrists, said that the threat of abuse was increasing because of attempts by various powerful bodies to use psychiatry for non-medical reasons." (The Times, 26. August 1997)
In einem Artikel von Arline Kaplan in Psychiatric Times vom Oktober 2003 (im Original fälschlich Oktober 2004) über „Psychiatry and Human Rights Abuses“ wird unter dem Titel „Politische Psychiatrie“ auf die sowjetische Praxis verwiesen, Dissidenten in psychiatrische Anstalten zu sperren:
„World awareness of the political use of psychiatry developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s as reports surfaced that the Soviet Union and some Eastern European countries, such as Romania, were locking up dissidents and religious followers in psychiatric institutions. “This practice represented a systematic use of a health profession to incarcerate healthy individuals into Special Psychiatric Hospitals, administered by the U.S.S.R. Ministry of the Interior, or the police, and not the U.S.S.R. Ministry of Health," the Geneva Initiative on Psychiatry (GIP) (2003b) explained in its statement about political psychiatry.” (Kaplan, Oktober 2003)
Nachdem die Vereinigung sowjetischer Psychiater 1982 aus der World Psychiatric Association (WPA) ausgetreten war, um einem Ausschluss zuvorzukommen, sei sie erst 1989 wieder aufgenommen worden, nachdem sie ein Ende des Missbrauchs und eine Rehabilitierung der Opfer versprochen hätte:
“In 1982, facing imminent expulsion from the WPA, the Soviets withdrew voluntarily. The following year, the WPA passed a resolution placing strict conditions on the Soviet’s return. In 1989, Soviet delegates to the WPA’s World Congress finally agreed to acknowledge that the systematic abuse of psychiatry for political purposes had indeed taken place in their country. The All-Union Society of Psychiatrists and Neuropathologists, the Soviet psychiatric association, promised to discontinue these abuses, rehabilitate the victims and democratize the psychiatric profession, and was allowed to return to the WPA (van Voren, 2002).” (Kaplan, Oktober 2003)
Nach dem Zerfall der Sowjetunion seien weitere Reformen, auch mit Hilfe der GIP (Geneva Initiative on Psychiatry), durchgeführt worden:
“The splintering of the Soviet Union in 1991 into independent republics (the Russian Federation) brought even more reforms. With the help of the GIP, the Network of Reformers in Psychiatry was established in 1993 as a support group and think tank for mental health care reform for countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the New Independent States (CCEE/NIS) (WHO, 2001). The network now unites some 600 mental health care reformers in 29 countries. Through the network, a pool of experts in the region has been developed and reform programs in various fields of care provision, such as nursing, substance abuse, psychogeriatrics and deinstitutionalization have been initiated.” (Kaplan, Oktober 2003)
Der politische Missbrauch der Psychiatrie sei zwar beendet worden, es gebe aber vereinzelt Fälle von Missbrauch in Turkmenistan und der Russischen Föderation:
“Robert van Voren, general secretary of the GIP, recently told Psychiatric Times that the political abuse of psychiatry "has come to an end in the former U.S.S.R., although there are sometimes cases in the Central Asian Republics, such as Turkmenistan." According to Human Rights Watch (2003), one of the largest human rights groups based in the United States, political dissidents in Turkmenistan were being arrested or committed to psychiatric hospitals against their will. In other parts of the Russian Federation, there are still isolated incidents of the abuse of psychiatry for political purposes, according to van Voren. Recently, a Russian officer was declared unaccountable in order to avoid a court-martial for raping a Chechen girl. It was clear this diagnosis provided by the Serbsky Institute [for Social and Forensic Psychiatry] was politically motivated," he said.”(Kaplan, Oktober 2003)
Im Rundbrief der „Walter-von-Baeyer-Gesellschaft für Ethik in der Psychiatrie“ (GEP) vom Mai 1988 werden die Vorträge wiedergegeben, die auf der Tagung "Psychiatrie und Glasnost", veranstatlet von der „Deutschen Vereinigung gegen politischen Mißbrauch der Psychiatrie“ und der „Internationalen Vereinigung gegen die politische Verwendung der Psychiatrie“, am 23. Januar 1988 in Bonn gehalten wurden. Die folgenden beiden Textausschnitte stammen aus dem Rundbrief:
„Der Mißbrauch der Psychiatrie zu außerpsychiatrischen Zwecken... ist als ein systematischer, vielfach auf ähnliche Weise betriebener Mißbrauch für die Sowjetunion seit dem Erscheinen von Wladimir Bukowskis Buch "Opposition: eine neue Geisteskrankheit der Sowjetunion?" (München, 1972) hundertfach belegt und beschrieben worden. Man weiß davon nicht bloß durch Dokumente und deren Interpretation, sondern auch durch die unmittelbare Zeugenschaft von Dissidenten, die die Psychiatrisierung über sich ergehen lassen mußten, aber auch von einer Reihe von psychiatrischen Fachleuten, die in den Westen gelangt sind, sei es durch Haftentlassung und legale Ausreise, durch Ausbürgerung oder Flucht. Vereinzelt konnten auch aus der Zwangsinternierung entlassene Personen von einem die russische Sprache beherrschenden westlichen Psychiater (nach-)untersucht werden.“ (GEP, Mai 1988)
„Aber damit ist das Thema der politischen Psychiatrie sicherlich nicht erschöpft: Glasnost und Perestrojka haben offenbar manchen in der Sowjetunion verändert, ob von Dauer, sei dahingestellt. Viele hohe Funktionäre haben ihre Posten verloren. Aber ein Mann namens Morosow befindet sich weiterhin in Würde und Amt, in voller Aktion. Er, Leiter des Moskauer Serbskij-Instituts, personalisiert den sowjetischen Psychiatriemißbrauch der vergangenen Jahre und ist offenbar ausersehen, seine Zunft mit dem Weltverband für Psychiatrie wieder zu versöhnen. Meine Damen und Herren, wir hören mit Freude, daß kürzlich in der Sowjetunion etwa 60 Personen aus der politischen Zwangshospitalisierung freigekommen sind. Aber vom Ende des Psychiatriemißbrauchs kann keine Rede sein. Wer dies verkennt, versteht weder die sowjetische Reformbemühung, noch versteht er das Phänomen der politischen Psychiatrie.“ (GEP, Mai 1988)
Zum Thema politische Psychiatrie in der Sowjetunion gibt es zahlreiche Quellen, eine Liste von Publikationen findet sich zum Beispiel unter Punkt 5 des Lebenslaufs von Prof. Peter Reddaway vom Political Science Department der George Washington University (GWU, CV Reddaway) und im Artikel von Meux/Gordon über „Forensic psychiatry in Russia“ (Meux/Gordon, 2000).
Das Centre for Eastern Studies (CES) erwähnt in seinem Bericht “Chechnya and Russia: The significance of the Chechen problem for contemporary Russia” vom August 2003, dass der Kreml den zweiten Krieg in Tschetschenien dazu benutzt habe, die Meinungs- und Redefreiheit in Russland einzuschränken:
“Freedom of speech in Russia and the Russian media were hit especially badly by the second Chechen war. During the first war, Russian and foreign journalises faced no restrictions on access to Chechnya and there were no substantial interventions in the content of their coverage of the events in the republic (this refers both to press and television). Today, the situation has changed radically. Chechnya is a zone closed to independent reporters. Articles and TV news broadcasts on the situation there are censored or self-censored by most media. The state’s control over the media is not limited to coverage of the developments in Chechnya. The Kremlin has used the war in the republic and the threat of terrorism overemphasised by its propaganda machinery to restrict freedom of speech in Russia in general.” (CES, August 2003, S. 74)
Das US Department of State (USDOS) stellt in seinem Jahresbericht zur Menschenrechtslage in Russland 2003 fest, dass die Regierung zwar im allgemeinen die Meinungsfreiheit respektiere, dies jedoch bei sensiblen Themen wie der Tschetschenienpolitik nicht immer zutreffen würde. Insbesondere sei Druck auf Journalisten und Medien ausgeübt worden:
“While the Government generally respected freedom of expression, this did not always extend to sensitive issues such as the conduct of Russian forces in Chechnya or to discussions of religion. For example, the August reorganization of VTsIOM, an independent, commercially-viable, state-owned, polling agency, was widely seen as an attempt to eliminate an independent source of information about issues such as political party ratings and public opinion on the war in Chechnya. [...] In October, a Moscow movie theater cancelled an independent film festival on Chechnya, reportedly out of concern that the films would offend the Kremlin. The Sakharov Center Director, one of the film festival’s organizers, accused Russian authorities of pressuring the movie theater into canceling the event. [...] At times, the authorities exerted pressure in a number of ways on journalists, particularly those who reported on corruption or Chechnya, or criticized officials. The Government exerted its influence most directly on state-owned media. As in 2002, the senior staff of RTR, one of the country’s two largest networks, reported that managers offered "guidance" to program announcers and selected reporters, indicating which politicians they should support and which they should criticize. Criticism of presidential policies was strongly discouraged and even prohibited. Correspondents claimed that senior management at times asked them to obtain senior management approval for reports on sensitive political matters prior to broadcasting, and that "negative" language was occasionally edited out. At times, high-level Presidential Administration officials reportedly complained to RTR executives about reporting they viewed as critical of the President. (USDOS, 25. Februar 2004, Sek. 2.a)
Behörden würden rechtliche Schritte gegen Journalisten unternehmen, die in unerwünschter Weise über die Regierung berichteten:
“Authorities on the federal and local levels continued to bring lawsuits and other legal actions against journalists and journalistic organizations during the year, the majority of them in response to unfavorable coverage of government policy or operations. The [media advocacy group Glasnost Defense Foundation] GDF estimated that nearly 300 hundred such cases were brought during the year. In June, Konstantin Sterledev and Konstantin Bakharev, two reporters for the Perm daily newspaper Zvezda, went on trial, accused of revealing state secrets. In 2002, the reporters had published articles regarding methods allegedly used by the regional office of the [Federal Security Service] FSB. Freimut Duve, the media representative for the OSCE, wrote a letter to Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and Presidential Envoy to the Volga Federal District Sergey Kiriyenko asking their views on the trial. Members of the British PEN organization asked President Putin and Justice Minister Yuriy Chaika to have the case thrown out, because they believed that the trial contradicted international freedom of speech standards. In July, the Perm regional court acquitted Sterledev and Bakharev. The regional prosecutor’s office appealed the acquittal to the Supreme Court that upheld the acquittal in a November ruling.” (USDOS, 25. Februar 2004, Sek. 2.a)
Regionale und lokale Behörden würden sich dabei die Schwächen des Justizapparates zu Nutze machen:
“Some regional and local authorities took advantage of the judicial system’s procedural weaknesses to arrest persons on false pretexts for expressing views critical of the Government.” (USDOS, 25. Februar 2004, Sek. 2.a)
Der Druck auf die Medien hänge mit dem Versuch zusammen, die kritische Tschetschenienberichterstattung zu reduzieren:
“Government efforts to limit critical coverage of its attempt to subdue what it regarded as a security threat posed by the rebellion in Chechnya were widely seen as a major impetus for its pressure on the media.” (USDOS, 25. Februar 2004, Sek. 2.a)
Amnesty International (AI) erwähnt in seinem Russland-Jahresbericht 2003, dass Medienanstalten wegen Kritik an der russischen Tschetschenienpolitik geschlossen worden seien. Der Journalist Grigory Pasko sei nach Aufdeckung eines Atommüll-Skandals festgenommen worden:
„Zu den Einschränkungen des Rechts auf freie Meinungsäußerung gehörten die Übernahme beziehungsweise Schließung unabhängiger Medienanstalten wie beispielsweise des Fernsehsenders TV-6, der im Januar abgeschaltet wurde. TV-6 hatte die Politik der Regierung, insbesondere wegen des Krieges in Tschetschenien, anhaltend kritisiert. Im Juni bestätigte die Militärkammer des Obersten Gerichtshofs das Urteil eines Militärgerichts in Wladiwostok, das den gewaltlosen politischen Gefangenen Grigorij Pasko zu vier Jahren Lagerhaft verurteilt hatte. Der Journalist und Marineoffizier Grigorij Pasko war 1997 festgenommen worden, nachdem er die illegale Verklappung von Atommüll durch die russische Marine aufgedeckt hatte. Ihm wurde zur Last gelegt, geheime Dokumente an japanische Medien weitergegeben zu haben. (AI, 2003)
Über den Fall von Grigory Pasko berichtet auch The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (FIDH and OMCT) in seinem Jahresbericht 2002 über “Human Rights Defenders on the Front Line”:
“On 25th June 2002, the Military Chamber of the Moscow Supreme Court confirmed the sentence on Mr. Grigory Pasko, military correspondent of the Russian Pacific fleet newspaper Boevaya Vakhta: four years’ imprisonment and loss of his military grade, for high treason. This sentence confirmed the appeal decision by the Vladivostok Military Tribunal on 25th December 2001, after which he had been placed in detention. These events were connected with a Japanese broadcast in November 1997 of a report by Mr. Pasko on the dumping of nuclear waste in the Sea of Japan, and his articles on pollution from the ship cemeteries and the promotion of certain generals. At that time he was arrested for revealing “defence secrets”. In July 1999, he had been given a three - year prison sentence for abuse of his military office and the high treason charge was dropped. Having already served two-thirds of his sentence, he was released under the law on amnesty for “short sentences”. However, the secret service (FSB) and Mr. Pasko both appealed to the Vladivostok Military Tribunal. After several adjournments and postponements, the appeal hearings had run between 11th July and 25th December 2001. On 10th September 2002, he was transferred from the Vladivostok detention centre to Labour Camp 41 in Ussuriysk, where he works in a carpentry workshop. On 25th December he had completed two-thirds of his sentence and was eligible for parole under Russian law, but no move was made. (FIDH/OMCT, 2002, S. 194)
Weiters berichten FIDH/OMCT über Angriffe auf die NGO „Memorial“, die sich für ein Ende des Tschetschenienkrieges stark gemacht hatte:
„On 18th July 2002, an armed group of soldiers wearing no distinctive insignia attacked premises of the Russian NGO Memorial in Grozny, capital of the Chechen Republic. The soldiers broke open the door and started to destroy the equipment. Memorial lodged a complaint but they were told it had merely been a routine check. Earlier in 2002 Memorial had helped set up a dialogue between the military and the Federal administration. A few days before the attack, Memorial had made a public declaration denouncing the lack of cooperation by both parties, and announced that it was ceasing all collaboration with the Federal forces. Memorial has also been the target of slander over its participation in a conference organised by several Russian NGOs on 9th and 10th November 2002, entitled “For an end to the war and the re-establishment of peace in Chechnya”. The televisions stations ORT and Vesti, which have links with the government, called Memorial’s activities “anti-patriotic” and “cynical” and said they played into the terrorists’ hands. It is rare for independent NGOs investigating the human rights situation in Chechnya to gain access to the media so that they can publicise their findings. When they do, they are denigrated and shown in a discriminatory light. In November for example, the newspaper Tchas Pik published an article in which the Soldiers’ Mothers Organisation of St Petersburg explained its positions against the war in Chechnya and the abuses of President Putin; but alongside the article was a column entitled “Unanswered questions” which included such pernicious questions as “How can an organisation that depends on foreign sponsors speak in the name of the Russian people?” and “Why do the Soldiers’ Mothers use unreliable information?”. (FIDH/OMCT, 2002, S. 195)
Auch die Journalistin Anna Politkovskaia, die zu Tschetschenien arbeitete, sei laut FIDH/OMCT verhaftet und bedroht worden:
“In February 2001, Mrs. Anna Politkovskaia, a Russian journalist with the weekly Novaia Gazetta, known for its investigations into the war in Chechnya, was arrested and deported from Chechnya by Russian forces. In Moscow in September she received death threats and was compelled to go into temporary exile. She returned to Russia in early 2002, as the death threats had ceased. On 9th February 2002, she was again arrested in Chechnya by the Russian army, for violation of the accreditation procedures, but managed to escape the following day. Mrs. Politkovskaia has received an award from the American journalists’ club for her reporting on the Chechen Republic.” (FIDH/OMCT, 2002, S. 195)
Zum Fall von Anna Politkovskaia findet sich auch ein Absatz im USDOS-Bericht:
“Novaya Gazeta reporter Anna Politkovskaya, who gained international recognition and received death threats because of her reporting on Chechnya, was forced into hiding in 2001. In October 2002, she received e-mail death threats signed "Kadet," the nickname for Sergey Lapin, a member of the OMON (special forces unit of the Ministry of Interior). On March 4, the prosecutor’s office in Nizhnevartovsk dropped the criminal charges against Lapin, citing evidence that Viktor Didenko, who died in 2002, had sent the e-mail threats to Politkovskaya and had signed them with Lapin’s nickname.” (USDOS, 25. Februar 2004, Sek. 2.a)
Das USDOS nennt in seinem Bericht auch den Fall von Igor Sutyagin, der wegen Spionageverdachts seit Jahren ohne Gerichtsverfahren festgehalten werde, weil er Informationen über Atomwaffen weitergegeben haben soll:
“A Moscow court suspended the trial of Igor Sutyagin, a disarmament researcher with the U.S. and Canada Institute who had been detained in 1999 on suspicion of espionage. Sutyagin was serving his fifth year in prison without a trial. Prosecutors accused Sutyagin of passing classified information about the country’s nuclear weapons to a London-based firm, but the Kaluga regional court ruled in December 2001 that the evidence presented by the procurator did not support the charges brought against him and returned the case to the procurator for further investigation.” (USDOS, 25. Februar 2004, Sek. 1.e)
Menschenrechtsaktivisten würden befürchten, dass dieser Fall die Freiheit der Forschung und Lehre beeinträchtigen könnte, heißt es an anderer Stelle des USDOS-Berichts:
„The Government did not restrict academic freedom; however, during the year human rights activists questioned whether the Sutyagin case and others discouraged academic freedom and contact with foreigners on issues that might be deemed sensitive.” (USDOS, 25. Februar 2004, Sek. 2.a)
Diese Informationen beruhen auf einer zeitlich begrenzten Recherche in öffentlich zugänglichen Dokumenten, die ACCORD derzeit zur Verfügung stehen. Die Antwort stellt keine abschließende Meinung zur Glaubwürdigkeit eines bestimmten Asylansuchens dar.
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