Citizens Commission on Human Rights
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| Formation | 1969 |
|---|---|
| Legal status | Nonprofit organization |
| Purpose | Anti-psychiatry |
| Headquarters | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Website | cchr.org |
The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) is a nonprofit organization established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, headquartered in Los Angeles, California. Its stated mission is to "eradicate abuses committed under the guise of mental health and enact patient and consumer protections." Many critics regard it as a Scientology front group whose purpose is to push the religion's anti-psychiatric agenda.
The CCHR achieved an early victory in a 1969 Pennsylvania case involving Victor Győry, a Hungarian refugee who had been committed to a psychiatric hospital against his will in April of that year. The police officers committing Győry said he had tried to kill himself. Doctors at Haverford State Hospital, failing to realise that Győry spoke very little English and was trying to address them in Hungarian, judged him "incoherent" and diagnosed him as a paranoid schizophrenic. The hospital refused Győry's request for legal representation, and administered drugs and electroshock treatment to him against his will over a three-month period. An aide at the hospital eventually notified the CCHR, who, under an initiative led by Szasz and lawyer John Joseph Matonis, took the case to court and secured Győry's release.
The CCHR continued to lobby for legislative reform on mental health issues such as the keeping of detailed computer records on involuntarily committed patients and their families, and "drug experimentation" without patients' consent. The CCHR would typically request a tour of a psychiatric hospital, issue a public report based on patient testimony and other sources, and then push for legal investigations and reform. Its early focus was on involuntary commitment procedures.
Since then, the group has organized media campaigns against various psychiatrists, psychiatric organizations and pharmaceutical companies, including Eli Lilly, the manufacturer of Prozac. One campaign is said to have caused a major fall in sales of Prozac, causing considerable commercial damage to the company.
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