Putin's criticism as a intellectual illness
Last year, at least 25 people were placed in specified facilities after criticism of Putin's military activities. specified practices have a long history, as the Rzeczpospolita reminds us. As we can read in it, as early as the 19th century Russian philosopher Piotr Czaadaev, a supporter of Russia's rapprochement with the West, was declared “deprived of his mind” by Tsar Nicholas I and subjected to repressive psychiatry. In Bolshevik times, Russia besides closed critics of communism in psychiatric institutions.
Modern Russia under Putin continues these methods. Those critics of the government are accused on the basis of repressive articles of the Criminal Code, specified as “the spread of Facebook and the discredit of the army” or “the promotion of terrorism and extremism”. This year, 8 specified sentences have already been passed. By comparison, before 2020, the courts ruled on an average of 3 specified cases per year.
Human rights violations
Human rights defenders note that the scale of this phenomenon has increased importantly following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. They besides stress that the actual number of victims may be much higher, as not all cases go to the media.
Aleksander Podrabinek, a Russian dissident and journalist, compares these practices to camps or prisons. In the 1970s, he wrote a book “Repressive Medicine”, for which he was sentenced to 5 years of camp in Siberia. Despite Russia's ongoing aggression against Ukraine, she inactive lives in Moscow and publishes articles criticizing the regime.
Podrabinek points out that hospitals to which people are directed under court decisions are more like prisons than medical institutions. Persons placed in specified ‘hospitals’ are deprived of fundamental rights and exposed to violence.
