IAAPA

International Association Against Psychiatric Assault
Spechtweg 1, 4125 Riehen, Switzerland


REPORT

title

Protest WPA- Dresden June 2007
We are putting the banner in place.
(In the background is the famous Dresden cigarette factory Yanidze)

World Psychiatric Association Congress on Coercive Psychiatry
 
Dresden, 6th - 8th June 2007

Media coverage - List of contents:
Gert PostelFor three days (and nights) the second most important topic besides the G8 summit in the German media - the main newspapers and state TV-channels - was our humorous enterprise of promoting the nomination for the Nobel medicine Prize of Mr. Gert Postel, a postman who decided one day to be a false psychiatrist, for his experimental proof that there is no such thing as "mental illness". Since we invited Mr. Postel to lecture about his experience in the City Hall in Dresden, the German media who was attracted to this event covered at the same time our protest against this congress, delegating the World Congress itself to a background role of our activities!...

Gert Postel impersonated a psychiatrist, applied for work and was accepted, later even promoted to head psychiatrist, and in the meantime invented "mental illnesses" which were accepted by the other psychiatrists. He was discovered - by chance - got sentenced to prison and now has the time of his life selling his book relating his adventure and being very popular in Germany. So we invited Gert Postel to be part of our protest against the World Congress. Additionally, by promoting his nomination for a Nobel Medicine Prize, we wanted to emphasize the truth which he uncovered by his lie: that there is no such thing as "mental illness", rather only an empty and mystifying use of jargon.

The point about Gert Postel is that psychiatrists and their "mental health consumers" present themselves as caring for the welfare of the patients, and here the patients are running a campaign to nominate an imposter for a Nobel Medicine Prize. The other point is that the Gert Postel experiment is a completing counterpoint of the famous Rosenhahn experiment.(This is a link to the full text which Stanford University refused to publish!) In this experiment, students pretended to be mental patients and hospitalized themselves and were diagnosed accordingly. Persistant rumor claimed that Foucault declared this experiment worthy of a Nobel Prize for Humor in Science. Of course, fake patients we can have by the dozen, the cleverness of the Postel experiment is the proof that also on the other side, you don't need to be a psychiatrist - i.e. a person who studied medicine - to churn out diagnoses. That means that both sides are fake. We just needed to wait until a person would show up in the role of psychiatry and publicly admit that he is a fake.

Last month, in a response to our outcry against the violation of human rights, the media obtained from the organizer of the WPA congress, Thomas Kallert, a public statement that "Naturally,  coercive measures in psychiatry are justified." since we knew that several of our colleagues are going to participate in this congress, we felt it is important to notify them in advance about this official statement of the organizer. Apparently this did not deter them. While we put our protest bannerProtest gegen WPA- Dresden Juni 2007 outside the congress hall, David Oaks from the North American organization "Mindfreedom" came out of it to us shouting why it is important to collaborate with the psychiatrists. On the right you can see him trying to convince Alice... One reason for his shouting was soon discovered: he was recording himself in order to broadcast "Live from Dresden" to his internet radio. I figure out that the shouting meant to prove to his intended listeners that he is also protesting... Another reason was discovered after seeing the SCI website: photographic documentation of the collaboration between, from left: Prof. Juan Mezzich (President of the World Psychiatric Association), "our" David Oaks and Judy Chamberlin, Prof. Thomas Kallert (Torture-Congress Organizer) and last but not least: Peter Lehmann (from the European Network of Users and Survivors). We feel that this picture below deserves a special title so we are announcing here a world-wide contest, with 3 prizes of up to 50€, to find the appropriate title. See the results here.

WPA - SCI - BPE MeetingThe German media constantly confronted the psychiatrist Kallert, who organized this evil WPA congress, with Gert Postel's claim that there is no such thing as mental illness and anybody, even a postman, can  be a psychiatrist. Kallert had no other reply than to say: "Gert Postel was a convicted imposter."
To the best of  my knowledge, this is the first time anywhere in the world that the mainstream media ever put this question to a psychiatrist, and one that organized a world psychiatric congress at that. So it is a record of some kind.

And in an even more bizarre reaction to our action, the German consumer association, which unshamingly participated in the torturer's congress, issued a statement to the media, complaining that our action would be "a slap in the face of those with psychological health problems. The allegation that there is no mental illness would degrade them to simulators", proving that without this rhetoric of "illness" they cannot be truly sick! After a more careful examination on the internet of this press notice, it turned out that it was composed by an organization of psychiatrists and social workers at the direct request of the organizer.
When we settled in front of the congress center, we noticed the low attendance of this event.
Our group separated into three, one holding the big banner, one occupyingProtest against WPA- Dresden June 2007 the tent, on the other side of the road, with the slogan "Forced treatment is torture! Here in this center it is being perfected." The third distributed flyers.

We were referred to in the media as "Postel fans" - see below.
You must admit this term is a much nicer one than to be described as a mental health consumer.

Article in MorgenPost



In the afternoon we folded the banner and the tentProtest again WPA














and we walked through the streets of the center of Dresden with our posters until we reached the Dresden City Hall.Protest gegen WPA-Kongress in Dresden - Juni 2007
Protest gegen WPA-Kongress in Dresden - Juni 2007





 







Protest gegen WPA-Kongress in Dresden - Juni 2007The crown of the media coverage of our Postel enterprise was the state TV-channel MDR news, broadcasted at prime time. There you can even notice inside the empty halls of the WPA congress the lonely  stand of the courageous "critics", who braved themselves to enter into this lion's den of psychiatrists to promote whatever ... You can also compare the flocking of the city folks (approx. 400) to the lecture of the false psychiatrist Gert Postel with the low attendance to the WPA congress. The TV interviewed some of them about their reason for attending his readinig. (see the TV report here: http://www.iaapa.de/mdr_postel.mpg  )
Gert Postel
After the reading, several of the audience remained to discuss with Gert Postel personally.
Gert Postel

The lesson all of us activists around the world can learn, is that  with humour and inventiveness you can hijack a very well financed event which is accepted by international and national bodies.
Also that we can advocate our stand without demeaning ourselves by joining in with self-proclaimed psychiatric torturers.
Since only the Postel experiment forced psychiatrists to answer the media questions about forced treatment being justified. It is important to support this nomination of him for the Nobel Prize for Medicine. Please fill out this form here and send it. 
For those of you who can read Hebrew, you can read and see pictures in our association blog here.

Hagai Aviel
Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten
dated 24.5. - report on page 4: "Postel moves into the City Hall"
-
Leipziger Volkszeitung
dated 24.5. - report on page 4: 
www.gert-postel.de/#dresden

Asked for his statement by the above newspaper, the organizer and speaker of the WPA Congress, Prof. Kallert, let the cat out of the bag by making the following declaration:

"Naturally, coercive measures in psychiatry are justified."


Thus Professor Kallert himself unmasked the fact that the invitation of "critics" of coercive treatment was only a cunning evasive maneuver. The actual goal of the congress however was never to place this practice of coercion and violence in psychiatry in question but instead to come to an agreement on an international level on how the coercive methods can be perfected and standardized. The is exactly the goal which we strongly criticize and we therefore demand the strict termination of all psychiatric coercion – be it "coercive treatment", "compulsory custodian-ship" or "only" involuntary labeling with so-called psychiatric "diagnoses". 

We are of the opinion that psychiatric coercive treatment is a despicable form of torture or comes close to being torture.  According to the Anti-Torture Convention of the United Nations, coercive psychiatric treatment fulfills all criteria for the definition of torture:

  1. Humans are subjected to great physical and mental harm by being locked up or the compulsory mechanism of a guardianship (so-called "support"), by the forced administering of harmful drugs (psychopharmacological drugs), electroshocking (so-called ECT), binding (so-called "four-point-restraint"), by slandering as allegedly "mentally ill", by the loss of dignity and one's self-determination and lasting social and physical consequences of coercive treatment. 
  2. It is not only a matter of persons just being tormented by others, it happens on the basis of national laws such as the "PsychKG" (German mental health laws) and custodianship law and is also exercised by "persons with official status" e.g. the social psychiatric service.  
  3. Psychiatric coercive treatment fulfills the criteria of the UN definition by torture in as much as humans are intimidated and/or forced into a confession, with the goal of  "illness insight" so that the victim remains permanently under the control and thereby becoming a "customer" of psychiatry in order to standardize people's behavior and thoughts. Psychiatry is thereby an instrument of power and social control. (Here you can read a detailed account of the direct proximity of coercive psychiatry and torture: "Coercive psychiatry, a torture system":  www.iaapa.de/zwang2/halmi_english.htm).

Psychiatric coercive treatment cannot be justified as medical or therapeutic treatment, because informed consent is necessary for it. The self-determination over one's own body is an inviolable human right. The only purpose of so-called psychiatric "diagnoses" is to divide adults into two categories: "humans" and the "mentally ill" and to rob the latter of their human rights, in order - under the pretext of the medical treatment - to make them submissive.
                                            
History has proven how the medical libel of the psychiatric diagnosis "Schizophrenia" can lead to criminal acts: the psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler, inventor of this term, committed the typically Nazi crime of coerced sterilizations, based on this diagnosis.               

Nobody demonstrated the complete void of contents of psychiatric jargon better than Gert Postel. The postman Gert Postel successfully impersonated a psychiatrist and was promoted to the position of head physician of a Saxonian psychiatric institute. As a result of this undercover "adventure" he knows the power apparatus of coercive psychiatry from the inside. So he can report from the inside of a power which is based only on the mystification of a non-existent knowledge and the gullibilty of its subjects. We therefore call for the nomination of Gert Postel for the Nobel Prize for Medicine:

It is time to apologize.


In the long ongoing discussion on the responsibility of science regarding crimes against humanity, one institution was omitted:
The Nobel Prize.

We, the signatories, call for remembrance of the immoral granting of the Nobel Prize for lobotomy to Antonio Egas Moniz in 1949. Lobotomy, especially being applied alongside force and violence in psychiatry, was an obvious crime against humanity. Having it rewarded with the Nobel Prize gave this cruelty the aura of good medical practice and promoted its use.

As the Nobel Prize cannot be recalled, we appeal to the Nobel Prize Committee and Assembly as well as to the universities which are entitled to create a nomination of the candidates for the Nobel Prize, to apologize for this by a deed of its own: namely by rewarding Gert Postel, a successful impostor of a senior doctor of psychiatry, with a Nobel Prize in Medicine. Since 1981 he has thrice proved the mere lie of any psychiatric knowledge and thus denounced it as an act against humanity. He proved with his existential experiment that within science there is a moral voice which is indeed necessary to limit the possibilities of science-based techniques and medical practice.

This aspect of Gert Postel's work has to be rewarded, despite all controversy as to whether or not he used criminal methods in falsifying a non-existant doctor's license in psychiatry and therefore diametrically opposing a principal dogma of the medical profession.

Gert Postel accomplished the famous David L. Rosenhan experiment and proved that it could be repeated at any time just as well on the doctors' side and therefore gives empirical evidence that there is no such thing as „mental illness“.

Resolution of the General Assembly of the Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft Psychiatrie-Erfahrener e.V. on 15.5.2007
Resolution of the General Assembly of the International Association Against Psychiatric Assault on 24.4.2007
Resolution of the Plenum of the Werner-Fuss-Zentrum on 23.5.2007
Resolution of the Board of the Landesverband Psychiatrie-Erfahrnerer Berlin-Brandenburg e.V. and  Irren-Offensive e.V.

With the suggestion to nominate Gert Postel for the Nobel Prize for Medicine and the justification thereof, we were able to publicly substantiate our demands and opinions and also provide the media with a sensational press release, which on the one hand seemed preposterous, but on the other hand seriously put salt on the wound of the Nobel Prize. This combination led to a wave of mainstream media coverage.
On 1 June on page 4 there was a report by the:
Leipziger Volkszeitung
Citation:
Leipzig. The idea seems absurd and hopeless, but is meant in earnest: Imposter Gert Postel should get the Nobel Prize for Medicine. The Federal Association of Psychiatric Survivors (Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft Psychiatrie-Erfahrener) in cooperation with other associations has started a campaign towards the goal of convincing the Nobel Prize Committee to nominate this ex-criminal.

The trained postman repeatedly gained the position of doctor with the use of false references and in the 90ties for two and a half years he was employed as Head Physician and supposed psychiatrist in the Saxonian
Zschadraß Hospital. In the Leipzig courts that brought him a four-year prison sentence. Now the initiators of the campaign now contend that Postel "has proved that there is no such thing as psychiatric knowledge". Furthermore, they regard his actions as empirical evidence of the non-existance of mental illness.

The 48-year-old is himself pattron of the
"Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft Psychiatrie- Erfahrener"
The campaign is supported, among others, by an international association against psychiatric abuse and by the Irren-Offensive e. V. Postel himself reacted gladly to the request by this newspaper and in his usual manner raised the stakes even higher: "The next step would be for the Medical Faculty of the University of Leipzig to award me with an honorary Doctor's title." A.G.
On 2nd June on page 2 the following article appeared in the:
Oberhessische Presse
By the way...
.... "psychiatry survivors" want the Nobel Prize for Medicine for Gert Postel.

Gert Postel is well known in the Federal Republic: the former postman, who
today lives in Marburg, "hoaxed" his way up to the position of Head Physician of a psychiatric hospital. He was later condemned for his imposture and sat time for this. In the meantime as an author he is making a tour of the republic. Next Wednesday Postel discusses  "The power of psychiatry" in the Dresden City Hall  - as a counter-program to the Dresdner "World Congress of Psychiatry". The Federal Association of Psychiatric Survivors, which wants to initiate a campaign with the aim of supporting the nomination of Postel for the Nobel Prize for Medicine, was also invited. Postel knows "the power apparatus of coercive psychiatry from the inside".
And then the first of three medial highlights on 5th June on page 8 of the:

News flash

Gert Postel, 48 year-old imposter, is to receive the Nobel Prize for Medicine. That at least is the opinion of the Federal Association of Psychiatric Survivors ("BPE"), which started an appropriate campaign together with other associations. Already two years ago the "BPE" determined in a resolution that Postel had proved "with his existential experiments several times the fact that there is no psychiatric knowledge, but is rather only a deception, based on a fraudulent feigning of scientific by use of jargon". With "existential experiments" the association describes how the postman with falsified certifications procured employment as a physician and in the nineties was for two years a "Head Physician" and "psychiatrist" in Saxonian Zschardrass. For this the Leipziger regional court condemned Gert Postel to four years detention.
on 5th June, page 5:

Then the 2nd bomb-shell: on 6.6. the largest daily newspaper in Saxony carried a lengthy report right on the front page!:
Imposter as hero

Gert Postel

The false doctor Gert Postel appears today in Dresden at the protest agains the Psychiatry Congress.

By Heinrich Löbbers

This would be the crowning event of one of the most curious careers in the whole country. A trained postman who made a career as a false doctor and convicted imposter is to receive the Nobel Prize for Medicine.
That at least is the demand of the Federal Association of Psychiatric Survivors (Bundesarbeits­gemeinschaft Psychiatrie-Erfahrener). According to them, Gert Postel had apparently proved that there is no such thing as psychiatric knowledge and that psychiatry is directed against humanity.

In fact, in the 90's with false references Postel hoaxed his way into the position of Head Physician at the Mental Clinic in Zschadraß near Leipzig and nearly even became Head Physician of the psychiatric hospital in Arnsdorf near Dresden. His imposter escapades made for quite some embarrassment.

The story of the Nobel Prize is a crazy idea, which certainly won't be followed up. However, Postel is honoured once again. Today he has his big appearance in Dresden - as patron of the anti-psychiatry movement. He is to lead the protest of the "psychiatric survivors" against the international congress organized by Prof. Thomas Kallert from Dresden. Several hundred doctors plan to discuss coercive treatment there. Kallert is of the opinion that coercive measures are certainly justified, however for the protesters it is nothing but torture.

This was a project for Postel, who in the meantime had sat out a jail sentence, wrote a book called "Playing Doctor" ("Doktorspiele") and is currently writing a second one. The 48-year-old, who now lives in Marburg, isn't at all regretful but rather proud of his professional career. He did a "society critical thing" and boasts at having held up a mirror to psychiatry.

Today in Dresden he will read from his book and pronounce "critical comments" on the congress of the "World Psychiatric Association". "The Power of Psychiatry" is the name of the event, for which the council
hall is being provided at the City Hall at 19h.

In addition to this, protest demonstrations will be held in the next few days in the vicinity of the Congress Center.

From the viewpoint of the "Psychiatric Suvivors", Gert Postel "provided empirical evidence that there is no such thing as mental illness". In their eyes, the imposter is a hero who now even has his own fan club in the internet. In Dresden his fans will be able to pay tribute to him personally.
On 7.6. the other large tabloid, the
Morgenpost
printed on page 9 a good article about the event at the City Hall including a photo of our protest in front of the ICC and thereby documented it for a large segment of the public:

on 7.6. page 8:
Sächsische Zeitung

The third bomb-shell and in a sense the crowning event of reports in the media was a video report during the prime viewing time:
News in MDR Television
See video and read transcript here: www.iaapa.de/halli_kalli.html

A fantastic report showing a full house in the City Hall in sharp contrast to the almost  empty WPA Congress and with which absurd jargon one can become a Head Psychiatric Physician is documented in this news report of a state television broadcaster. It is Prof. Kallert who is to be thanked for the prompt confirmation of this fact in the MDR interview. He gives brilliantly precise information about his knowledge.

On 8.6.07 comes a new report in:
Neues Deutschland

and here some more newsworthy reports:
Radio  reports
  • Radio ColoRadio Dresden:
    Interview with René Talbot and an announcement of the counter-event at the City Hall
  • Radio Dreyeckland Freiburg
    on the 1.6. with René Talbot and an announcement of the counter-event at the City Hall
    and on the 13.6. a report from the lecture of Gert Postel

  • Sachsen Radio:
    Interview with Gert Postel and an announcement of the counter-event at the City Hall
  • Radio Corax Halle:
    Interview with René Talbot on the unfolding of the events
  • Dissidentenfunk:
    on 14.6. with a comprehensive detailing of the event

  • Radio Unerhört Marburg:
    Interview with Alice Halmi on the unfolding of the events
Flyer:

Protest days against the World Psychiatric Association on "coercive treatment".

Unmasked:

The WPA congress - a deplorable disaster  


From 6 - 8 June 2007 in Dresden Germany a World Congress of Psychiatry is to take place on the subject of coercive treatment. The congress is evil, since it has as its premise torture-like coercion and force as the basis of psychiatry. This was confirmed by the organizer and speaker of the congress, Professor Thomas Kallert, on 24.5. in two large daily newspapers, the LVZ and the DNN: 

"Naturally, coercive measures in psychiatry are justified."

 Thus Professor Kallert himself unmasked the fact that the invitation of "critics" of coercive treatment was only a cunning evasive maneuver. The actual goal of the congress however was never to place this practice of coercion and violence in psychiatry in question but instead to come to an agreement on an international level on how the coercive methods can be perfected and standardized. The is exactly the goal which we strongly criticize and we therefore demand the strict termination of all psychiatric coercion – be it "coercive treatment", "compulsory custodian-ship" or "only" involuntary labeling with so-called psychiatric "diagnoses". 

We are of the opinion that psychiatric coercive treatment is a despicable form of torture or comes close to being torture.  According to the Anti-Torture Convention of the United Nations, coercive psychiatric treatment fulfills all criteria for the definition of torture:

1. Humans are subjected to great physical and mental harm by being locked up or the compulsory mechanism of a guardianship (so-called "support"), by the forced administering of harmful drugs (psychopharmacological drugs), electroshocking (so-called ECT), binding (so-called "four-point-restraint"), by slandering as allegedly "mentally ill", by the loss of dignity and one's self-determination and lasting social and physical consequences of coercive treatment. 

2. It is not only a matter of persons just being tormented by others, it happens on the basis of national laws such as the "PsychKG" (German mental health laws) and custodianship law and is also exercised by "persons with official status" e.g. the social psychiatric service.  

3. Psychiatric coercive treatment fulfills the criteria of the UN definition by torture in as much as humans are intimidated and/or forced into a confession, with the goal of  "illness insight" so that the victim remains permanently under the control and thereby becoming a "customer" of psychiatry in order to standardize people's behavior and thoughts. Psychiatry is thereby an instrument of power and social control. (Here you can read a detailed account of the direct proximity of coercive psychiatry and torture: "Coercive psychiatry, a torture system":  www.iaapa.de/zwang2/halmi_english.htm).                

                                                                                                                                                                                      Psychiatric coercive treatment cannot be justified as medical or therapeutic treatment, because informed consent is necessary for it. The self-determination over one's own body is an inviolable human right. The only purpose of so-called psychiatric "diagnoses" is to divide adults into two categories: "humans" and the "mentally ill" and to rob the latter of their human rights, in order - under the pretext of the medical treatment - to make them submissive.                                    

History has proven how the medical libel of the psychiatric diagnosis "Schizophrenia" can lead to criminal acts: the psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler, inventor of this term, committed the typically Nazi crime of coerced sterilizations, based on this diagnosis.                                                               

Nobody demonstrated the complete void of contents of psychiatric jargon better than Gert Postel. The postman Gert Postel successfully impersonated a psychiatrist and was promoted to the position of head physician of a Saxonian psychiatric institute. As a result of this undercover "adventure" he knows the power apparatus of coercive psychiatry from the inside. So he can report from the inside of a power which is based only on the mystification of a non-existent knowledge and the gullibilty of its subjects. We therefore call for the nomination of Gert Postel for the Nobel Prize for Medicine.     

(You too can send your own demand to the Nobel Committee using the enclosed specimen letter.)

 Incidentally we have pleasantly observed that the number of participants of the congress falls well, well below the expectations of the organizers. We can thereby check off this congress as a further failed attempt to save this violent type of system. This is also because in 2005 on a legal level not only did the higher regional court of Celle establish that the legal basis for coercive treatment in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) is missing, but by a special form of the representation agreement in the FRG we have a legal loop-hole, allowing the exclusion of compulsory hospitalization and coercive treatment for those who have signed such a representation agreement. Thus for those protected in such a way, these criminal actions become what they really are: the criminal offence of bodily injury and deprivation of liberty. 

We invite you to join our protest:

- on Wednesday, 6 June, starting at 8:30h  in front of the Congress Center on the sidewalk of Devrienstrasse. Starting at 16h we will proceed in a demonstration to the square in front of the "Kulturpalast" (intermediate demonstration) and later to the Town Hall (Rathaus) square with a closing speech at ca. 17:30h.      

On  Thursday, 7 June,  we again start at 8:30h in front of the Congress Center on the sidewalk of Devrienstrasse. Additionally there will be a further protest demonstration from 17h at the Jorge-Gomondei-Platz (Neustadt).

-  on  Wednesday, beginning 19h in the Dresden City Hall ("Dresdner Rathaus, Ratsaal") you can visit the presentation "The Power of Psychiatry": Gert Postel in a discussion with the public will deliver a critical comment there on the World Congress of Psychiatry and at the beginning will read from his (German) book "Doktorspiele" ("Playing Doctor"). This event takes place in co-operation with WIR e.V. Dresden. (Entrance: 2 Euro, free entrance for those with disability pension, ALG2 or basic social support)

- to support  the nomination of Gert Postel for the Nobel Prize for Medicine and to send the enlosed specimen letter with your own address as sender to the Nobel Committee

-  to inform yourself about our  psychiatry-critical film series in the filmtheater "Metropolis", address: Am Brauhaus 8 (entrance free - donations requested)

Program:

Tuesday, 5 June:      20h: "the Foucault Tribunal"  +  22h: "Interview with Gert Postel" and "Michel Foucault, Philosopher"

Thursday, 7 June:     20h: "For your own good" + 22h: "Frances"     

Friday, 8 June:       20h: "Selection and Extermination" and "Unheimliches Wiedersehen" + 22h "Healing by Killing"

International Association Against Psychiatric Assault (IAAPA),   Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft Psychiatrie-Erfahrener e.V.sticker (die-BPE),  Irren-Offensive e.V. and   Landesverband Psychiatrie-Erfahrener Berlin-Brandenburg e.V. in the Werner-Fuss-Zentrum, Greifswalder Str. 4, 10405 Berlin 

Further information on psychiatry critique in German: 

www.zwangspsychiatrie.de and www.die bpe.de

International in English:  www.iaapa.ch

Press statment:

Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft Psychiatrie-Erfahrener e.V.
International Association Against Psychiatric Assault (IAAPA)
Werner-Fuss-Zentrum 
Irren-Offensive e.V.

  Landesverband Psychiatrie-Erfahrener Berlin-Brandenburg e.V.

We are pleased to announce that the Federal Association of Psychiatric Survivors (die-BPE) has initiated a campaign together with cooperating organizations advocating the nomination of Gert Postel for the Nobel Prize for Medicine.

In addition to the information about the protest against the World Congress of Psychiatry in Dresden, announced in the meantime, we are glad to inform you about this campaign, the motivation for it and the support it has on an international level.

It should be noted that the organizer of the World Psychiatric Association Congress, Prof. Kallert, now also publicly confirmed that at this congress torture, coercion and violence in psychiatry will not be discussed, but rather only be perfected. Quotation of Prof. Kallert on 24.5. in the LVZ and the DNN daily newspapers: "Naturally, coercive measures in psychiatry are justified."

We are pleased that at least our desire for a financial fiasko of this congress has been fulfilled: According to our recent research, not even 300 visitors will be attending this despicable meeting instead of the expected 1500 visitors. Thus the congress emerges not only contentwise, but also financially as a deplorable disaster.

Deutsche Erklärung von die-BPE

The torturers are worried
(Resolution Point # 1 of the G.A. of May 22, 2007)

From 6th-8th June, 2007 in Dresden Germany a World Congress of Psychiatry is to take place on the subject of coercive treatment.

We are of the opinion that psychiatric coercive treatment is a despicable form of torture.

We request the organizers to call the congress off. Participants who have already booked their journey and overnight accomodation could instead enjoy the touristic attractions of Dresden.
The congress is evil, since it has as its premise torture-like coercion and force as the basis of psychiatry. It is precisely this premise which we dispute. For these acts of violence there cannot be an apology, even when it is alleged to be "medical" treatment, because in this case "informed consent" as an inviolable human right applies.
The direct proximity of psychiatric coercive treatment and torture is thus evident [1].

An ostensible "diagnosis" in psychiatric jargon is the basis of this psychiatric violence masked as medicine in the form of incarceration and coercive treatment. We are of the opinion that this is slander, in particular with such words such as "schizophrenia", the invention of an unscrupulous Eugen Bleuler, who is known for the fact that he serially committed a typical Nazi crime: coerced sterilizations. These coerced sterilizations were the prelude for the singularity of the German physician crimes: systematic mass murder in the gas chamber, which was the blueprint for the murder of the European Jews, Sinti, Roma and others.

Nobody demonstrated the complete void of contents of psychiatric jargon better than Gert Postel. Although he was only trained as the postman, Gert Postel was promoted to the position of head physician of a Saxonian psychiatric institution. As a result of his undercover investigations he knows the power apparatus of coercive psychiatry from the inside. So he can report from the inside of a power which is based only on the mystification of a non-existent knowledge and the gullibilty of its subjects. Therefore we are very pleased that we could win him for an event on 6th June at 19h in the Dresden City Hall, in which he ironizes the structures of their power preservation.

We support this event and protest outside of the congress center.

Never any compliance with torturers!

------
[1] : Coercive psychiatry, a torture system: http://www.iaapa.de/zwang2/halmi_english.htm

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