8/19/09
Letters Editor
The Toronto Star

Dear Editor,
Isabel Teotonio’s article re the horrific death of 22-year-old Kulmiye Aganeh is somewhat inaccurate and full of omissions. (“Mother wants answers as to why son died.” Aug. 17). First, Kulmiye’s mother Ikram Said did in fact listen to and act on his pleas for a lawyer – to say she “never listened” is not true. Second, Kulmiye was not “schizophrenic”; a psychiatrist concluded he was not “mentally ill”. Kulmiye was understandably angry at being fraudulently labeled, drugged and locked up in psychoprisons like Whitby Mental health Centre and the Oak Ridge hellhole of Penetanguishene Mental Health Centre. Third, Kulmiye “collapsed” and died within minutes after guards forcibly injected (overdosed) him with 85 milligrams of zuclopenthixol, another dangerous neuroleptic. Fourth, racism as a major factor,raised by several human rights activists at the conference, was not mentioned.The Midland OPP’s criminal investigation into this homicide and the subsequent inquest will probably be another whitewash.
Don Weitz
1401-38 Orchard View Blvd., Toronto,Ontario M4R 2G3

6/25/09

Dear Canadian Pensioners Concerned,Ontario Division,

We wish to call CPC’s attention to the psychiatric procedure called electroshock (“electroconvulsive therapy”/”ECT”). Contrary to popular belief, electroshock was never banned or restricted in Canada. Unfortunately, it is increasingly administered to women, mainly elderly women, usually without informed consent or against their will. We have compiled ECT statistics from the Ontario government’s Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care that clearly show that two to three times more women than men are electroshocked, the overwhelming majority of these women are 60 years and older.

Since electroshock always causes some permanent memory loss and brain damage and since elderly women are its main targets, electroshock should be considered a form of elder abuse and violence against women. In this context, we urge you to read these two major articles by one of us, Dr. Bonnie Burstow:
”Understanding and Ending ECT: A Feminist Imperative”. Canadian Woman Studies, vol.25, numbers 1,2, 115-122 ( 2006), and
“Electroshock as a Form of Violence Against Women”. Violence Against Women, Vol 12, no.4. 372-392 (April 2006). Dr. Burstow is on the faculty in the Department of Adult Education and Counselling Psychology at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto; she is also a widely-respected feminist, trauma specialist, author, chair of the Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault (CAPA), a long-time friend and colleague.

For your further information, we are also pleased to attach a copy of the article titled “Electroshocking Elderly People: Another Psychiatric Abuse”, International Journal of Counselling Psychology and Psychotherapy, vol.15 no.2 (May 1997), written by Don Weitz. We also are attaching a copy of a recent media release, “Stop Shocking Our Mothers and Grandmothers”, the theme of a Mother’s Day event on May 10,2009 in Toronto, organized by CAPA. Similar anti-shock events on Mother’s Day were also held last month in Montreal and Ireland, and last year in Ottawa as well.

We would appreciate your forwarding this letter and attachments to the CPC Board including Co-chairs Sylvia Hall and Margaret Watson, and Ms. Moyra Haney, chair of your Health/Environment Committee.
We very much hope that CPC puts electroshock on its agenda as a major health and human rights issue that must be addressed. If so, please feel free to contact us. We look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,

Dr. Bonnie Burstow, Chair, Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault
(signed)
Dianne Moore, Executive Member
(signed)
Don Weitz, Executive Member
(signed)
Executive Committee, Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault
http://capa.oise.utoronto.ca

Contact: Dr. Bonnie Burstow, bonnie.burstow@utoronto.ca, ph:416-538-7103; Don Weitz, dweitz@rogers.com, 416-545-0796

Immediate Release – June 8, 2009

CAPA Endorses Vigil-Memorial for Esmin Green in New York
and announces a Support Vigil in Toronto on June 19, 2009, 8pm

The Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault (CAPA) officially and wholeheartedly endorses WE THE PEOPLE’S Vigil for Esmin Green in New York City on June 19, 2009. The first Vigil was held last year in New York and Toronto. Ms. Green’s very tragic death in the emergency ward of King’s Country Hospital Center in Brooklyn on June 19, 2008 was totally preventable and outrageous and cries out for international protest and justice now. It’s important to remember that the death of this poor black woman was a direct result of race-and-class driven indifference and neglect by members of the hospital’s psychiatric, medical and nursing staff. Almost equally outrageous and unjust, the deaths of thousands of other brothers and sisters in American, Canadian and European psychoprisons have not been reported by mainstream media or covered up. Ms. Green’s death, including her sudden collapse, in King’s County Hospital could not be covered up because it was caught on the hospital’s own video cameras and widely posted on YouTube. Although Ms. Green’s family recently won a court-ordered judgment of $2 million, a city report of the investigation into her death at King’s County Hospital is pending.

CAPA is also proud to announce it is organizing and coordinating a support vigil-memorial on June 19, the same day of WE THE PEOPLE’s Vigil in New York. The CAPA Vigil-Memorial is being held in front of the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry, a branch of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), on the northeast corner of Spadina Ave. and College St., at 8pm. ‘The Clark’ houses CAMH’s admission department and its notorious ‘ECT’ unit where thousands of people, mostly women, have been electroshocked, frequently without informed consent or against their will. During our vigil, we are paying respect not only to the memory of Esmin Green but to many other sisters and brothers and friends who have died from medical neglect and psychiatric tortures such as forced drugging and electroshock in psychoprisons across Canada. The deaths of Esmin Green and many others must never be forgotten!

Everybody is welcome.
Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault – http://capa.oise.utoronto.ca
Contact person: Don Weitz, Toronto, 416-545-0796; Lauren Tenney, New York, 516-319-4295

The International Campaign to Ban Electroshock (the ICBE) supports the CAPA vigil-memorial for Esmin Green who died tragically in New York.

Esmin Green will not be forgotten ever. Esmin was tortured by psychiatry and its neglect towards her. Esmin need not have died at all but she did. Why?
Esmin waited for over 24 hours in an emergency room and no one took notice of her being physically ill and then falling over onto the floor. She died and still no one took notice. This is an injustice! This is abuse! This is neglect! This is criminal what happened to Esmin.

Psychiatry is notorious for torturing people and they have been doing this for over 100 years now.
Psychiatry tortures people with their toxic drugs, their brain damaging electroshock, their labelling of people with bogus mental illnesses that do not exist, and being stigmatized with these so called labels, with restraints, and locking people up against their will.
In Ontario, CTO or otherwise known as Community Treatment orders still exists today whereby psychiatric survivors are forced to take toxic psychiatric drugs in the community or they are forced back into a psychiatric facility. This is social control of the people of Ontario.
Psychiatry is the biggest medical fraud out there today. Psychiatry is dangerous and evil.
Esmin was one of psychiatry’s victims. May we never forget what happened to her. It could happen to me or you or to someone you know.
Psychiatry will be dismantled as it is not gaining the ground it once did as people are becoming aware psychiatry is not a real science it never was
and how psychiatry has a hall of shame as long as highway 401.
Esmin did not deserve to be treated this way. Her human rights were violated.
her dignity was violated, her medical rights were violated and as a human being she was left there to die on a hospital floor with no concern for her at all.
May we take one minute of silence now to remember Esmin.
I thank all of you who have come out and have supported this Esmin Vigil-Memorial today.
Shame! shame on psychiatry – Psychiatry will come tumbling down to its knees.
Millions of people have been tortured by psychiatry.
What happened to Esmin is despicable, unethicial, barbaric, an atrocity and a crime against humanity.
We are not able to be with you all today but we are with you all in spirit.

We remain in solidarity,
Sue Clark-Wittenberg and Steven Wittenberg
directors of the International Campaign to Ban Electroshock
The ICBE in Ottawa

NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 22 2009

CONTACT:
Jim Gottstein
907-274-7686
jim.gottstein@psychrights.org

In an important decision issued today, William S. Bigley v. Alaska Psychiatric Institute, http://psychrights.org/States/Alaska/CaseXX/S13116/090522BigleyvAPIsp-6374.pdf, the Alaska Supreme Court significantly advanced psychiatric patients’ constitutional due process rights when the state seeks to force them to take psychiatric drugs against their will.

“One of the things they held,” said Jim Gottstein, President and CEO of the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights) and the attorney who handled the case, “is that if the State is holding someone in a psychiatric facility, they must provide a feasible alternative to the forced drugging if the alternative satisfies the State’s asserted justification. The State’s only other option is to let the person go.”

The Court also held that in order to allow the person a realistic opportunity to prepare a defense, when filing a forced drugging petition, the State must provide a written statement of the facts underlying the petition, including the reasons for the forced drugging, information about the patient’s symptoms and diagnosis; the medication to be used; the method of administration; the likely dosage; possible side effects, risks and expected benefits; and the risks and benefits of alternative treatments and nontreatment. “This is very important,” Mr. Gottstein said, “because up until now, they just checked a box that said the person was incompetent to decline and the facility wants to drug the person. Then the State comes in with a witness who testifies untruthfully and there is no way to have been prepared to rebut it.”

Equally important, the Court ruled the person’s lawyer must be given access to the person’s medical and psychiatric records in advance of the hearing and adequate preparation time. “The problem is judges have been misled for years that these drugs increase safety and are beneficial to patients,” according to Mr. Gottstein, “The truth is they decrease safety, are ineffective for most, are physically very harmful, and prevent many people from recovering. The evidence on this is clear, but the way these cases have been rushed through without allowing adequate time for a defense, these facts have not normally been revealed to the judges.”

The Law Project for Psychiatric Rights is a public interest law firm devoted to the defense of people facing the horrors of forced psychiatric drugging and electroshock. PsychRights is further dedicated to exposing the truth about psychiatric interventions and the courts being misled into ordering people subjected to these brain and body damaging drugs against their will. Extensive information about these dangers, and about the tragic damage caused by electroshock, is available on the PsychRights web site: http://psychrights.org/.

# # #
–

James B. (Jim) Gottstein, Esq.
President/CEO

Law Project for Psychiatric Rights
406 G Street, Suite 206
Anchorage, Alaska 99501
USA
Phone: (907) 274-7686) Fax: (907) 274-9493
jim.gottstein[[at]]psychrights.org
http://psychrights.org/

PsychRights®
Law Project for
Psychiatric Rights

The Law Project for Psychiatric Rights is a public interest law firm devoted to the defense of people facing the horrors of forced psychiatric drugging. We are further dedicated to exposing the truth about these drugs and the courts being misled into ordering people to be drugged and subjected to other brain and body damaging interventions against their will. Extensive information about this is available on our web site, http://psychrights.org/. Please donate generously. Our work is fueled with your IRS 501(c) tax deductible donations. Thank you for your ongoing help and support.

Media Release – May 2009

STOP SHOCKING OUR MOTHERS AND GRANDMOTHERS
STOP STATE-SPONSORED VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

Date: Mother’s Day, May 10, 2009
Time: 1:15pm (March) & 2pm (demo)
Place: Queen’s Park, Toronto

The Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault (CAPA) announces another public
protest against psychiatry’s use of electroshock (“electroconvulsive
therapy” or “ECT”).   CAPA is a political action organization that
addresses psychiatric violence (see website below).  This special Mother’s
Day event is co-sponsored by Maggie’s and the Association of Part-Time
Undergraduate Students of the University of Toronto and is endorsed by
over 20 women’s, human rights, and social justice organizations.  This is
an international protest which occurs every year and which takes place in
locations throughout the world including Montreal and Cork Ireland.  This
year’s Toronto protest starts with a march at 1:15 pm at the NE corner of
Spadina and College (in front of the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry,
CAMH); the rally, which includes shock survivor-testimony, speeches, and
entertainment, starts at 2:00 pm in Queen’s Park.  The keynote speaker is
MPP Cheri DiNovo.  Entertainment includes the legendary singer and
activist Faith Nolan.

The event is being held on Mother’s Day because a disproportionate number
of women generally and elderly women in particular are subjected to ‘ECT’
and ‘ECT’ is now considered the treatment of choice for postpartum
depression.  According to ‘ECT’ statistics (see Burstow 2006), 2-3 times
more women than men undergo ‘ECT’; approximately 70% of patients shocked
are women; 50% of these are women 65 and over.

The largest study in electroshock history was conducted in 2007 by Harold
Sackeim et al. At the level of statistical significance, it proves that
that electroshock always causes brain damage, including permanent memory
loss, and that women and the elderly suffer the most damage from it.
Other important pieces of research show that women are greatly traumatized
by the damage (see Burstow, 2006) and that despite claims to the contrary,
electroshock is no more effective than placebo (Ross, 2006).

This damage is authorized and paid for by the state and we demand that the
state put an end to it.  On May 10th, we call on psychiatry and the state
to stop shocking our mothers and grandmothers.  Join us in delivering this
challenge.   Eat with us, listen to testimony and other speeches, enjoy
the entertainment.  This is a child-friendly event (bring your children).
This is a BYOMAG event  (bring your own mother and grandmother).   Let’s
make Mother’s Day count.

Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault: http://capa.oise.utoronto.ca,
capa@oise.utoronto.ca
Contact persons: Dr. Bonnie Burstow, 416-538-7103; Don Weitz, 416-545-0796

The Betrayal of Ray Sandford: Electroshock, Torture, and the Lutheran Church
by Don Weitz

Note: This opinion piece is partly based on a letter I sent a few months ago to the Minnesota branch of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in Minneapolis,

It’s a miracle that 54-year-old Ray Sandford is still alive after having been forcibly electroshocked over 40 times in less than 6 months. He may not survive another electroshock (“ECT”) procedure. In 2008, Ray was court-ordered to undergo an indefinite number of electroshocks, with the approval of Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty,  the state psychiatric organization and the Lutheran Church, specifically Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. On December 24, Mr. Sandford was forcibly subjected to his 36th shock. Some Christmas gift!  By April 2009, Ray has undergone over 40 electroshocks against his will.  By any standard of medical ethics, this is cruel and unusual treatment or torture, a blatant and continuing violation of human rights.

Electroshock – shock promoters sanitize and call this horrific psychiatric procedure “electroconvulsive therapy”– is inherently destructive and inhumane. During every ‘treatment’, an average of 200 volts is delivered to the brain through attached electrodes. The immediate effects are a grand mal epileptic seizure, convulsion, and coma. When the patient awakens, s/he experiences a severe headache, disorientation (not knowing where you are, the date and/or your own name), physical or muscle weakness, trauma, and memory loss, which is frequently permanent. Permanent memory loss always indicates brain damage. Many shock survivors and professional critics assert the brain damage including memory loss always occurs following every  ‘treatment’. According to neurologists, the so-called “improvement” following a series of ‘ECTs’ is actually temporary euphoria or giddiness that regularly occurs after head injury, the so-called ”improvement” or ”high” from electroshock lasts a maximum of 6-8 weeks. The average number of ECTs administered to the person is 8-10. Mr. Sandford has already been forcibly shocked over four times that number – one shock is one too many!

For several months since last spring, Ray Sandford has tried to refuse electroshock- he told his psychiatrist, a judge, and a spokesperson for the Lutheran Church that he suffering serious effects of the shocks and wants them stopped immediately. To their shame, not one of these authorities listened, they’ve callously ignored Mr. Sandford’s competent refusal.

The Lutheran Church of America’s refusal to get involved in Ray’s case is particularly troubling and inexcusable – a betrayal of trust. The Church cannot plead ignorance about electroshock since its many devastating and permanent effects have been widely published in medical journals and the media for over 50 years. The Church also cannot justify its silence when it claims that making a public statement would violate Mr. Sandford’s right to confidentiality or privacy. In fact, Mr. Sandford has explicitly and repeatedly urged survivor and human organizations, such as MindFreedom International, to publicize his struggle to stop the electroshocks. Having survived over 40 ECTs, it’s amazing that Mr. Sandford is still alive. That fact speaks to Mr. Sandford’s courageous refusal of electroshock and his will to live—a sharp contrast to the Lutheran Church’s continuing and inexcusable silence and its implicit support of this memory-destroying, brain-damaging procedure.

For over 25 years, many of us shock survivors, other psychiatric survivors, professional critics including psychiatrist Peter Breggin, neurologist John Friedberg, and neuroscientist Peter Sterling, and human right activists have protested against electroshock in various states including California and Texas; anti-shock protests and public demonstrations have also been held in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal in Canada, as well as Cork, Ireland and New Zealand. We‘re demanding an immediate ban. Through the organizational initiatives of MindFreedom International, a coalition of over 100 psychiatric survivor and human rights organizations in 14 countries, MindFreedom Ireland, and the Toronto-based Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault (CAPA), we have launched national and international campaigns to ban electroshock because we know it’s traumatic, frequently torturous, and unethical. Over 2 months ago on February 1, the CAPA Executive including myself wrote a letter of protest to Erick Jonsgaard, Ray’s ‘general guardian’ – he never replied.

Given that the Lutheran Church is a religious and Christian organization, I find it bitterly ironic that on December 24, the day before Christmas when Mr. Sandford was forcibly shocked the 36th time, the Church refused to speak out, refused to raise any ethical or moral issues involved in electroshock, and refused to provide any meaningful support to Ray Sandford in his hours of great personal suffering and crisis.  Equally unfortunate, his lawyer appears to be more of a hindrance than help. On April 15, 2009, USA Tax Day, Ray Sandford will be forcibly shocked again  – in the name of “mental health”. Perhaps Minnesota taxpayers will be shocked to know a portion of their taxes are being used to forcibly shock and brain-damage Ray Sandford and other vulnerable citizens.

Biographical note: Don Weitz is an insulin shock survivor, executive member of the Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault, and co-editor of Shrink Resistant: The Struggle Against Psychiatry in Canada.

1401-38 Orchard View Blvd.,Toronto,Ontario M4R 2G3

Hello everyone:  Below is the Ottawa ECT protest flyer:

ELECTROSHOCK PROTEST
MAY 10th, 2009 – OTTAWA, ONTARIO
1 p.m -  PARLIAMENT HILL

Meet at the Centennial Flame

FOR MORE INFO CALL SUE:

613-721-1833 see the ICBE website: intcamp.wordpress.com <http://intcamp.wordpress.com>  ³events²

The International Campaign to Ban Electroshock (ICBE) is holding its second annual protest against electroshock (ECT)

ECT is still around, it never left.

130 hospitals in Canada continue to give ECT.  ECT is not safe nor are the ECT machines.  A recent study byHarold Sackeim reports that ECT causes brain damage 100% of the time.  People are not being told the truth about ECT.  See Breggin.com for more info.  See the Blog and News section to read this article.

Approximately 14,000 ECTs are given in Ontario yearly.  100,000 Americans get ECT yearly, worldwide it is estimated that 1 to 2 million people get ECT yearly.

Sue Clark-Wittenberg the director of the ICBE had ECT which damaged her.  Sue suffers from permanent memory loss and has difficulty learning new things.

Sue says ³I don¹t want anyone to go through what I did.  I was tortured²

The ICBE deems ECT to be barbaric, unethical, inhumane, torture and a crime against humanity.

The ICBE is working with others around the world to  help end ECT universally.

regards,Sue (Ma’at) Clark-Wittenberg
MFI member -
Director, International
Campaign to Ban Electroshock (ICBE)
Website URL:  intcamp.wordpress.com <http://intcamp.wordpress.com>

Electroshock is a crime against humanity”

ANTIPSYCHIATRY RADIO – TAKE BACK OUR RADIO
Transcript – March 11, 2009

Welcome to a very special edition of Antipsychiatry Radio. I’m Don Weitz, your proud producer-and-host of Antpsychiatry Radio. Originally titled Shrinkrap over 12 years ago, Antipsychiatry Radio was producing and broadcasting critical opinions and exclusive interviews with courageous psychiatric survivors and antipsychiatry activists and critics of the psychiatric system since 1994–until I was suddenly ‘dismissed’ and the program cut without notice, cause or reason on May 5 last year. Like many other CKLN programmers who’ve been censored, harassed, threatened, dismissed or fired, and locked out by a rightwing staff and board of directors, Antipsychiatry  Radio was forced into exile. But no more, I’m back fighting to reclaim Antipsychiatry Radio, and 60 other programmers and hosts are also fighting to reclaim CKLN as the community, democratic and revolutionary voice of oppressed people in Toronto and beyond.

Tonight, I’m dedicating this special edition of Antipsychiatry Radio to all women psychiatric survivors and sister programmers. In honour of International Women’s Day, our sisters and feminists everywhere, tonight’s program features a special pre-recorded interview with Bonnie Burstow. Dr. Burstow is an outstanding and outspoken feminist and antipsychiatry activist, she is on the faculty in the Departments of Adult Education and Counselling Psychology at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE). A little over a week ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Burstow about her views on feminism, antipsychiatry and electroshock, and how she became an antipsychiatry activist. These are a few edited excerpts from that interview. Let’s listen to Part 1… [play CD, 7:46 minutes]

We’re now going to take a short break with an excerpt from the song “There Is
No Hole in My Head” by Malvina Reynolds [play CD 1 minute]

We’re continuing a special interview with feminist and antipsychiatry activist Dr. Bonnie Burstow. Let’s listen to Part 2…  [Play CD, 6:50 minutes]

Like Dr. Burstow, some dissident professionals, shock survivors and activists have publicly protested against the psychiatric system, particularly electroshock. Many shock survivors, antipsychiatry and social justice activists including Dr. Burstow and myself want it banned. Electroshock is a symbol of coercive-biological psychiatry and the “mental health system” itself which is actually a social-control system based on the 3Fs of force, fraud and fear. Force because virtually all-psychiatric procedures like forced drugging, electroshock and physical restraints are assaults. Fraud because psychiatric diagnostic labels including “schizophrenia”, bipolar mood disorder”, ADHD” and “mental illness” itself do not refer to any physical illness or disease in the body; psychiatric diagnoses are subjective moral judgments of conduct or character assassinations.  Fear because being locked up, forcibly drugged and not told when you’ll be released triggers fear or panic. Psychiatrists, their promoters and Big Pharma ceos who tell us that psychiatry is “medical science” are lying.

Electroshock is psychiatry’s major brainwashing weapon; it’s a memory-destroying, brain-damaging psychiatric procedure that does not deserve to be called “treatment”. It always causes some permanent memory loss, brain damage, trauma and fear. Several studies, including the comprehensive 2007 study by Dr Harold Sackeim and others, clearly and conclusively document the fact that both young and elderly women suffer significantly more memory loss and brain damage than men. “ECT” statistics I’ve obtained with great difficulty from Ontario’s Ministry of Health during the last 5 years clearly show that 2-3 times more women than men are shocked and roughly half of these women are over 60, which is why I also call shock a form of elder abuse. The neurological and psychological damage is generally permanent; hundreds (maybe thousands) have died after they were shocked. For example, well-known poets and writers such as Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and Ernest Hemingway committed suicide shortly after they were shocked; the careers and lives of actress Frances Farmer and artist-social justice activist Paul Robeson and countless others were ruined after they were locked up and electroshocked.  In her book The Politics of Cruelty, feminist writer Kate Millett has called electroshock not only cruelty but also torture. It’s obvious that electroshock is a human rights issue, it should also be a women’s issue, but so far electroshock is not a priority item on the feminist agenda.

Many women shock survivors, like Carla McKague and Paivi Lane in Toronto; Sue Clark in Ottawa; Wendy Funk in Whitehorse, Yukon; Helene Grandbois in Montreal; Mary Maddock in Cork, Ireland; in the United States many other shock survivor-sisters including Barbara Cody in Chicago and Linda Andre in New York have called electroshock, barbaric, cruel, a torture and crime against humanity. Grassroots resistance led by women survivors and feminist-activists is growing. During the last 3 years, women shock survivors and feminist-activists have led anti-shock rallies and protests in 3 cities in two countries–Canada and Ireland. On Mother’s Day in 2007, anti-shock protests were held in Toronto, Montreal and Cork, Island. The Toronto protest was organized by feminists, antipsychiatry activists and shock survivors in the Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault (CAPA); in Montreal a similar protest was organized by the Comite Par-chocks in collaboration with Action Autonomie and Collectif Pour le Defense des Droits en Sante Mentale de Montreal; in Cork, Ireland, the anti-shock protest was organized by MindFreedom Ireland. These major protests were led by women survivors and human rights activists; their powerful theme and demand was and still is Stop Shocking Our Mothers and Grandmothers; it was this demand on Mother’s Day in 2008 when more anti-shock protests were held in Ottawa, Montreal, and Ireland. Women were the chief organizers and featured speakers; they undoubtedly will be this year when more protests are held in Toronto, Montreal and Cork, Ireland. The growth of these protests and demands to ban electroshock means that electroshock resistance is going global, it means that we are witnessing an international movement against electroshock and psychiatric oppression and for human rights. This is very empowering, a tribute to all women survivors, antipsychiatry activists and feminists who have courageously broken their silence, spoken out and acted out against electroshock and psychiatric oppression of women.
For more information on electroshock and the struggles to ban it, check out these websites:http://capa.oise.utoronto.ca, icbe.wordress.com, and endofshock.com
This is Don Weitz thanking you for listening to this special edition of Antipsychiatry Radio-in-exile. My special thanks to Ron Nelson and Dale Whitmore for their technical support; Susy Pocasangre, Stephanie Gude and Carmelle Wolfson who worked hard and long to organize all the special programs and this empowering broadcast, and the Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault that endorses TAKE BACK OUR RADIO.
Stay tuned for more special International Women’s Day programming.

Eric  Jonsgaard
Senior Director
Guardianship Options
Lutheran Social Services of America/LSSA

Dear Mr. Jonsgaard,
Of behalf of the Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault (CAPA), we are writing to you re the legal case of Mr. Ray Sandford. We understand that your social services organization has been appointed general guardian for Mr. Sandford, and that Ms. Tonya Wilhelm, a staff or volunteer worker with LSSA, has been assigned his “guardian ad litem.” We also understand that Mr. Sandford has been court-ordered to undergo electroshock (“ECT”) on a weekly or  bi-weekly basis against his will, and that he is appealing this forced treatment. Further, we understand that Mr. Sandford has already undergone 37 or 38 electroshocks and that more will be administered –over his expressed and repeated refusals.

One of CAPA’s top priority issues is organizing against electroshock and working toward a universal ban. We therefore are very concerned whenever people are forced to undergo a psychiatric procedure like electroshock—without informed consent. We wish to point out that we are credible critics of electroshock and very knowledgeable about its many health risks including permanent memory loss and brain damage. We therefore strongly and publicly oppose electroshock. In our collective judgement, forcibly shocking Mr. Sandford constitutes assault, a serious violation of his human rights. Although LSSA may have no direct role or authority re Mr. Sandford’s electroshocks and court appeal, it has chosen to be remain silent, despite the fact that Mr. Sandford has given permission to human rights and advocacy organizations to publicize his situation
Although LSSA may not be a participant or have no authority to intervene in Mr. Sandford’s court case, as a progressive and religious organization it has a moral and public responsibility to speak out on ethics and human rights issues. It is our judgement that electroshock, particularly forced electroshock, is a serious violation of medical ethics and Ray Sandford’s human rights. In this light, we urge the LSSA to at least question the morality of using the authority and police powers of Minnesota to force a vulnerable citizen like Ray Sandford to undergo electroshock. We point out that this so-called  “safe, effective, and lifesaving treatment” has permanently damaged the lives and careers of many of our relatives, friends and colleagues in Canada, the United States and other countries. We fear that electroshock has already damaged Mr. Sandford’s brain and destroyed his life. (See websites http://capa.oise.utoronto.ca, http://endofshock.com)

We look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

Dr. Bonnie Burstow, Chair, Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault (CAPA)

Shaindl Diamond, PhD, Candidate, Dept of  Counselling Psychology, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Member of CAPA

Mel Starkman, Member of CAPA

Don Weitz, Member of CAPA

Executive Committee, Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault

(signed)

C: Bishop Mark S. Hanson, Ecumenical Lutheran Church of America/ELCA

Miriam L. Woolbert, Ecumenical Lutheran Church of America/ELCA,

Communication Services

Please reply to: Dr. Bonnie Burstow – bburstow@oise.utoronto.ca