Tag: Citizens Commission on Human Rights

LOS ANGELES, Calif. /California Newswire - National News/ -- Despite dozens of closures of abusive "troubled teen" programs in behavioral and psychiatric centers, including wilderness camps in recent years, a leading mental health industry watchdog warns that children's lives remain at risk unless stronger laws ban the worst offenders and the secretive youth transport practices that feed them. The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) says that while public outrage and media exposure have forced some notorious facilities to close, the underlying problems that enable these abusive programs still persist.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. /California Newswire - National News/ -- Child and adolescent psychiatrists have issued a policy statement urging broader access to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for children and adolescents despite growing international condemnation of the practice on minors. Both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Human Rights Office have called for an outright ban on ECT for children. The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR), a mental health industry watchdog, condemned the statement as "medically reckless, legally dangerous, and morally indefensible."

LOS ANGELES, Calif. /California Newswire - National News/ -- Federal health authorities are sounding the alarm over the chronic use of antipsychotic and psychotropic drugs in America's nursing homes. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) has prioritized enforcement actions to reduce psychotropic prescribing-especially among seniors with dementia. With over 15,000 facilities nationwide housing more than 1.2 million elderly residents, mental health watchdog Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) warns the unchecked drugging of seniors constitutes systemic elder abuse.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. /California Newswire - National News/ -- In what is being widely reported as a landmark human rights decision, Italy's Constitutional Court in May 2025 struck down part of the country's decades-old psychiatric law-Article 35 of Law 833/1978-declaring some of its provisions for involuntary detainment unconstitutional. The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR), based in Los Angeles, hailed the decision as an essential step towards achieving human rights in the mental health field.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. /California Newswire - National News/ -- Amid a surge of reported abuse and deaths in psychiatric and behavioral residential programs for youth, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) is urging immediate and sweeping federal intervention. CCHR warns that continued inaction by state and federal agencies endangers lives and enables a mental health system where vulnerable children and adolescents are subjected to trauma, neglect, and avoidable harm.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. /California Newswire - National News/ -- A federal assessment of children's health has identified the widespread prescribing of psychotropic drugs to U.S. youth as a "public crisis" driven by industry profit motives, flawed science, and systemic conflicts of interest. According to the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR), a mental health industry watchdog, this is fueling a psychotropic drug market that reaps $22.6 billion annually.

CANBERRA, Australia, and LOS ANGELES, Calif., May 23, 2024 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- Scores of protesters marched on the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) Annual Congress in Canberra to demand it end its support of electroshock treatment, psychiatric restraints, forced drugging, and involuntary detainment. The protest was organized by Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a mental health industry watchdog founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology. CCHR demands a complete ban on coercive and dangerous psychiatric practices, citing their harmful effects on the vulnerable.

NEW YORK, N.Y., and LOS ANGELES, Calif., May 11, 2024 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- Those seeking help, beware, warns Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a mental health industry watchdog. For Mental Health Awareness Month, the group marched through the streets of New York to raise awareness about coercive mental health practices including forced institutionalization and the use of electroshock (ECT) - even on children. Strategically timed to coincide with the American Psychiatric Association (APA) annual convention in the city, CCHR also brought its Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Exhibit to New York.

NEW YORK, N.Y., and LOS ANGELES, Calif., May 8, 2024 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- "Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Exhibit," open now through May 9 at 37 Union Square West in Manhattan, is not for the faint of heart. But it provides vital information to avoid or survive coercive psychiatric practices that infringe against human rights. The exhibit, produced by Citizens Commission on Human Rights, shows how these practices put health, safety - even life - at risk.

NEW YORK, N.Y. and LOS ANGELES, Calif., May 7, 2024 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- Midtown Manhattan reverberated with angry voices chanting "Stop the Torture-Ban ECT" as a phalanx of protesters from Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) made their way from Times Square to the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) at Jacob Javits Convention Center. Their demands: The American Psychiatric Association must end coercive practices.

BUDAPEST, Hungary, and LOS ANGELES, Calif., May 2, 2024 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- In the aftermath of the UN and World Health Organization guidance directing that psychiatry cease its coercive practices in the field of mental health, the European Psychiatric Association (EPA) Congress in Budapest in April 2024 attempted damage control. Their arrival sparked protest: a march and the launch of an exhibition to expose psychiatric violations, organized by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, the mental health watchdog founded in 1969 by psychiatrist Thomas Szasz and the Church of Scientology.

DIEPSLOOT, South Africa, and LOS ANGELES, Calif., May 1, 2024 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- Citizens Commission on Human Rights South Africa brought the Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Exhibit to Diepsloot, a densely populated township in Gauteng, South Africa. The exhibit, held April 19 to 26, educated officials, business owners, members of African royalty and residents on human rights abuse, racism and harmful practices that pervade psychiatry, including its role in promoting racism.