The Human Rights House Foundation (HRH F) is pleased to inform that Valerij Misnikov, right, is released from the mental hospital where he was being held since November 2007. Several houses in the Human Rights House Network protested against Misnikov’s sentence, which according to local defenders was an attempt to silence him. (05-JUNE-08)

Written by HRH F / Ralph Pluimert

Yesterday, HRH F was informed about the release of Valerij Misnikov, after he was being held in a psychiatric institution for the past 6 months. Local human rights defenders have always claimed that Misnikov’s custody was a way to silence him. Misnikov’s case was taken up by Belarussian human rights defender Leanid Svetsik who informed human rights organizations and the media.
Currently, Svetsik himself is under pressure of the KGB, which for some days ago interrogated him and confiscated his pc and human rights related documents. HRH F has also protested against this. You can read about this case here  
 
Background
During the two last decades, Valerij Misnikov has acted as a human rights defender of public interests. Together with his colleagues, he disclosed cases of violations in the Vitebsk region in the North of Belarus and released this information to the public. At the beginning of 2007, a case was brought against Misnikov, accusing him of having stolen the files concerning a criminal case against him from the prosecutor’s office (Article 377 part 2 of the Criminal Code). In the related case Misnikov was accused of having dishonored legal officers, while submitting complaints against officers of local governments and leaders of state farms and companies. Misnikov has always denied having stolen the documents in question. After a trial, which Misnikov was not allowed to take part in, the judge declared him in need of involuntary medical treatment in a mental hospital.

Belarusian human rights defenders have always claimed that in the case of Misnikov, forced psychiatric treatment was against a human rights defender. In the Soviet times, the authorities suppressed activists and dissidents by bringing them to mental clinics using medicine and psychiatry as a tool for repression and illegal imprisonment

Activists and journalists considered Misnikov’s case the second attempt of Belarusian authorities to force psychiatric treatment upon active, critical citizens. Thshatikova kristina newsby 100.jpg e first such case was launched against Kristina Shatikova, left, a human rights defender from Mogilev. She was kidnapped in the street by governmental agencies, humiliated and taken, with assistance of local psychiatrists, to the Mogilev mental clinic in March 2006.  There, she was subjected to medical treatment without consent. According to Shatikova, the team of psychiatric doctors that treated her explained that she was kept at the clinic and subjected to the treatment because of her activities as a human rights defender.