Update: On March 20th, two weeks after he was detained and after a public campaign in his defense, Charushev was finally released.  “Our fight was successful,” said Olga Kurnovosa, who heads the St. Petersburg branch of the United Civil Front party.

“This is a very rare occurrence in today’s Russia,” she added.

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A Russian opposition activist, who says he was confined against his will to a mental hospital, will remain in the facility after a St. Petersburg court ruled in favor of his compulsory treatment Saturday.  According to the ZAKS.ru online newspaper (Rus), Vadim Charushev is well known as the creator of several political web-resources and social networking groups.

According to Charushev’s attorney, Viktor Grozovsky, the activist was detained by police, then forcibly hospitalized on the night of March 6th.  It remains unclear why Charushev was first arrested.

Grozovsky said he had spoken with Charushev for two hours, and commented that he appeared to be “a completely normal, mentally sane person.”  Charushev told the attorney that he had categorically refused to sign for treatment as a voluntary patient, at which point he was threatened.  The activist was told: “You won’t get out of here, you’ll be here as long as it takes, and you’ll have other problems as well.”

At that point, Charushev says he was forced to sign off on his hospitalization.  Despite the fact that Charushev has not been diagnosed with any illness, he may now be held at the clinic for up to 6 months.

Charushev was creator and moderator of a wide range of political opposition groups on VKontakte, a Russian social networking website similar to the US-based Facebook.  Among his groups were “I didn’t vote for United Russia and Putin’s marionette!,” and “Galina Starovoytova, your ideas live on.”  Starovoytova, a deputy in Russia’s State Duma, rallied for ethnic minorities and human rights, and was assassinated in Moscow in 1998.

Olga Starovoytova, Galina’s sister, said she had met Charushev online, and was grateful for his efforts to remember her sister’s work and ideas.  “He needs to be taken out of the mental hospital at any cost, as quickly as possible,” she told ZAKS.ru.

Natalya Nelayeva, one of Charushev’s long-time friends, testified as a witness on his behalf.  “Vadim’s health worries me very much,” she told the court.  “He is completely green, hasn’t eaten anything for five days now and is terribly emaciated.”

Nelayeva believes Charushev’s confinement is punishment for his political beliefs.

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Read more about punitive psychiatry in modern Russia.

Kozlov was attempting to block workers from felling a large group of trees from the Tsaritsyno national-historic park, located in the South-eastern part of Moscow. The activist has made it his mission to preserve the park, which was once part of territory owned by Catherine the Great.

Militsiya officers, who arrived at the scene to assist the workers, forcibly apprehended Kozlov, and took him to Moscow’s mental hospital number 14.

Yabloko’s leader, Moscow City Duma representative Sergei Mitrokhin, demanded that the activist be immediately released. “In actual fact, we are seeing the revival of psychiatric repressions in the country against people, whose life philosophy is unacceptable to the authorities,” Mitrokhin said.

According to the representative, “a genuine ecological crime it taking place today at Tsaritsyno.” “Thousands of the park’s healthy and mighty trees are being prepared for clear cutting. People like Nikolai Kozlov are not simply defending green spaces, but the lungs of Muscovites, including residents of the particularly polluted south of Moscow.”

On July 31st, the inter-district environmental prosecutor’s office filed a presentation addressed to Leonid Bochin, the chief of Moscow’s department of environmental management and protection of the environment. The report detailed violations and breaches of established environmental regulations taking place during construction work at Tsaritsyno park.

An activist of The Other Russia coalition has been released from a mental hospital in the Russian city of Tver. Roman Nikolaychik, a leader of the international ARES movement, was forced into compulsory medical treatment at the hospital at the beginning of February.

According to Nikolaychik, 27, he is still under surveillance. He was also forced to retire “of his own free will,” from the local government office where he was employed prior to his hospitalization.

The ARES movement maintains that Nikolaychik was a victim of “punitive psychiatry,” after false charges of attempted murder were levied against him.

Political pressure increased on Nikolaychik after he was chosen as a local candidate on the party list of The Other Russia coalition, and after he began taking an active role in opposition demonstrations knows as Dissenters’ Marches. In total, he was held for close to four weeks in the Burshevo mental hospital in the Tver oblast. Some of the time was spent in solitary confinement.

Nikolaychik’s imprisonment made him the latest victim of repressive means and punitive psychiatry used against Other Russia activists. Larisa Arap was held for 46 days after she published a critical article in the Murmansk oblast. Artem Basyrov, was hospitalized for over a month in the Mari-El Republic.

Alternate spelling: Roman Nikolaichik

Roman Nikolaychik, an activist from the Russian branch of the international ARES movement, has been sent to a psychiatric hospital without charges or explanation. According to Yevgeniy Svetovidov, the organization’s Moscow press-secretary, Nikolaychik was apprehended on Friday, and has not been heard from since.

Svetovidov told Novaya Gazeta that Nikolaychik’s telephone was not receiving calls. Family and friends have not been told which asylum he has been taken to.

The ARES movement is presently working to free the activist. Svetovidov noted that local law enforcement have been unresponsive, and have refused to provide any assistance.

In addition to his work with ARES, Nikolaychik is involved with The Other Russia coalition and has run for office to the State Duma as an opposition candidate.

A statement released by ARES noted that an unfounded criminal investigation for attempted murder had been mounted against Nikolaychik. The “victim” who brought forth the accusation tried to extort money from Nikolaychik, saying she would drop charges for a sum. The criminal investigator assigned to the case ignored several witnesses, who were with Nikolaychik and vouched that he was several kilometers away from the “crime scene.”

“Seeing the obvious absurdity of the fabricated accusation, and anticipating that the case would simply fall apart, the security services decided to employ punitive psychiatry in relation to Nikolaychik, and he was sent for detention to a psychiatric clinic…” Svetovidov said.

“The current process has an obviously political nature, with Nikolaychik’s political position and his involvement with The Other Russia coalition serving as its cause,” the ARES statement reads.

According to the organization, Nikolaychik has been repeatedly detained and threatened with bodily harm from agents of Russia’s security ministries, including the FSB and the Unit for Fighting Organized Crime (UBOP).

Artem Basyrov, a member of the Other Russia coalition and the National Bolshevik Party, was released from a local neuropsychiatric clinic on December 25th. The activist had been held there since November 23rd, and called into the Sobkor®ru news agency to announce his freedom.

The decision to discharge Basyrov was made by a monthly commission within the hospital, although doctors did not give the patient any explanation. Basyrov is certain that the true reason for his freedom is pressure from both the Russian and international public.

The activist was detained on November 23rd and taken to an area neuropsychiatric health center. A medical examination board was only conducted on November 26th, although by law it must take place within 48 hours. The board concluded that Basyrov needed compulsory treatment, and this was recognized by a court decision the next day. Supporters sent a writ of appeal shortly thereafter to the Supreme Court of the Mari-El Republic.

The World Organisation Against Torture demanded the immediate release of Artem Basyrov on December 13th. The previous day, the United Civil Front party sent an entreaty to Russia’s Human Rights Commissioner, Vladimir Lukin. The party believes that Basyrov was hospitalized for political reasons, including his participation in opposition demonstrations known as “Dissenters’ Marches.”

The case continues to receive broad coverage in the foreign press but the Russian health and political hierarchy continues to support the illegal detention of Larisa Arap. From an Aug 7 Chicago Tribune article:

Larisa Arap crossed a line with Murmansk authorities when she co-wrote an article called “Madhouse” that appeared in a Kasparov movement newspaper, alleging the mistreatment of children and the use of electro-shock therapy at area psychiatric clinics. She claimed she observed those abuses during a monthlong stay at the clinic in 2004, in which she received treatment for stress.

On July 5, Arap appeared at Dr. Marina Rekish’s office to pick up a medical certificate needed to renew her driver’s license. Russian driver’s license renewals require annual certificates from a doctor and a psychiatrist stating that the applicant is physically and mentally capable of driving.

Last year, Rekish issued Arap the certificate without hesitation, says Elena Vasilyeva, head of the Murmansk branch of Kasparov’s pro-democratic movement called Other Russia. This time, however, Rekish had a question as Arap sat in her office. “She asked, ‘Are you the author of that article?'” Vasilyeva said, relating what Arap told her.

When Arap replied “Yes,” Rekish asked her to wait outside. Moments later police dressed in camouflage arrived and hauled Arap away, holding her arms crossed behind her back as they walked her to an ambulance.

When Vasilyeva and Arap’s husband and daughter arrived at the psychiatric clinic in nearby Severomorsk to see her, the 49-year-old political activist couldn’t walk or speak. Her eyes were swollen and barely open. She had just spent 24 hours strapped to a gurney, unable to move as nurses pumped heavy sedatives into her, Vasilyeva says.

The family has been told that Arap is being held because she poses a danger to others, an assessment made by Rekish and accepted by a judge during a hearing July 18.

Rekish did not respond to a request for an interview.

Transfer to Apatity

Arap is now being held at a mental asylum in Apatity, 93 miles south of Murmansk. Vasilyeva and Arap’s husband met with the asylum’s chief doctor July 31.

“The first thing he said was, ‘Aren’t you afraid of publishing this kind of article?'” Vasilyeva said. “I looked into his eyes and said, ‘You have the right to sue us if you don’t like the article, but right now we’re talking about why Larisa is in an asylum,'” Vasilyeva said. “He made it clear the reason for her being at the asylum was the article.”

Vasilyeva and Arap’s relatives last saw her July 31 at the Apatity clinic. She appeared underweight and groggy.

“She ran to us and cried bitterly,” Taisiya Arap said. “She told me she’s dying in there.”

On August 3-4, well-known human rights activist Oksana Chelysheva traveled to Murmansk with a French television crew to investigate the case of Larisa Arap. They were not allowed to visit Larisa, who has now been transferred to a facility in Apatiti, 200km from Murmansk. They did speak with her by phone on the 3rd. Larisa said they had been giving her a “new medication” and that she was experiencing a “permanent headache.” The reporters were stonewalled by the officials at the clinic, who refused to provide any medical documents about Ms. Arap’s case. They refused to answer most questions or to say why she is still there against her family’s will and in the face of numerous legal violations. The doctors were, however, eager to contradict the critical article Larisa Arap wrote about the clinic’s practices soon before her detention. At one point, one of the doctors told the French reporters, “no matter who runs the country we will be needed.” During their entire visit, Chelysheva and the reporters were followed about by a KGB agent, a clear indication of how this has quickly become a political case if it wasn’t one to begin with.

Russia’s human rights ombudsman, Vladimir Lukin, has said they will send an independent expert to review the case on August 9. Larisa was abducted over one month ago and there have been plenty of opportunities to intervene and investigate. Instead, the authorities have sat on their hands or actively defended the criminal actions of the Murmansk doctors.

UPDATE JULY 30: Ms. Arap’s daughter Taisiya has been able to visit her mother in the hospital. She requested to see the diagnosis of her mother and was refused by doctors citing privileged information. The photo on the right was taken by her daughter with her cell phone at the clinic where her mother is being held. We will be following Ms. Arap’s story closely. [We understand that the American consul from St. Petersburg is heading to Murmansk to inquire.]

The use of psychiatric detention as a weapon of repression was quite popular in the days of the USSR. Dissidents regularly disappeared into prisons and hospitals under charges of mental instability. This time the interests are likely of a baser nature, as Kasparov puts it: “It could happen if you attack the interests of the local Gazprom, the local military base, the local medical mafia. Attacking the interests of local bureaucrats is a terrible risk, because they don’t stop at anything to get their own back.” This is not the first such incident of the Putin era and it is no surprise to see the revival of the old Soviet methods.

As is often the case after such incidents hit the news, Russian opposition websites have been attacked and made unavailable by massive DDOS assault. As of this writing, namarsh.ru and kasparov.ru are under attack.