Punitive Medicine and Psychiatry

The use of the state healthcare apparatus, psychiatric clinics, and research institutes as a punitive instrument. The system of medical institutions is turned into an extension of the repressive apparatus: doctors under the control of the security services fabricate politically motivated diagnoses (for example, the nonexistent "sluggish schizophrenia"), while closed institutions are used as prisons for the indefinite isolation and drug-induced torture of dissenters [1].

ID: S0022
Type: Institution
People: Ukrainians
Version: 1.0
Created: 27 April 2026
Last Modified: 27 April 2026

Techniques Used

ID Name Use
T0135 Punitive Psychiatry

Use of state healthcare institutions for the politically motivated diagnosing of dissenters (the diagnosis of "sluggish schizophrenia") and their indefinite confinement in psychiatric hospitals[1].

T0110 Torture and Abuse

Administration of destructive pharmaceutical drugs (neuroleptics) as a means of physical and psychological pressure on healthy human rights defenders in closed institutions[1].

Actors Using This Instrument

ID Name References
G0010 USSR

[1][2]

Campaigns

ID Name Description
C0089 The "General Pogrom" of Human Rights Defenders and Punitive Psychiatry (1972–1985)

Use of state healthcare institutions for the politically motivated diagnosing of dissenters (the diagnosis of "sluggish schizophrenia") and their indefinite confinement in psychiatric hospitals[1].

References

  1. Михаил Зыгарь. (2023). Война и наказание: Как Россия уничтожала Украину.