Elena Urlaeva, among the best known of the human rights defenders in Uzbekistan, has been placed in a psychiatric hospital in Tashkent by relatives, the independent news site fergananews.com reported.
Urlaeva, head of the Human Rights Alliance of Uzbekistan was admitted to Tashkent Psychiatric Clinic Number 1 on April 5 by relatives who said that "there were medical indications for the hospitalization," fergananews.com reported, citing unamed sources.
Denis Urlaev, Urlaeva's adult son, said that a court hearing was held April 6 which ruled that Urlaeva must be forcibly admitted to psychiatric treatment.
Denis told fergananews.com that Urlaeva was being treated well, that she could have unlimited visits from relatives, and no medications were being admistered, due to the fact that she had high blood pressure and was at risk for a stroke.
"The doctors in the clinic are very nice, but they cannot say how long the treatment may last," Denis said. "The condition is severe for now."
That's one version of the story.
But uznews.net, another independent news site has a different version, where colleagues fear that her distressed state was somehow induced, to bring about a hospitalization in order to prevent her from traveling to Geneva to a UN meeting in May. "Something was done to her," say colleagues.
Here's what uznews.net had to say about the stunned reaction of her colleagues to a sharp personality change:
"Elena became completely out of touch after returning last Monday from a trip to Turkey, which was a total surprise for many of her colleagues," said journalist Viktor Krymzalov. He said that he had talked to Urlaeva Wednesday and was shocked at her statements. Elena reported that she had traveled to Turkey at the invitation of Muhammad Salih, leader of the Erk Party and the Popular Movement of Uzbekistan (PMU), where she had completely reviewed her life.
"She was saying we had to believe in Allah and not believe the lying West," said Krymzalov.
Uznews.net said Salih could not be reached for comment as he was reportedly outside of mobile phone range.
Urlaeva was said to make other incoherent statements, such as that school and work were "evil," and that Switzerland (where she was to travel) "did not exist." She was also said to throw her human rights documents off a balcony.
It was so unlike her normal behaviour that friends couldn't believe it was her, says uznews.net.
Urlaeva's mother told reporters that they had finally called an ambulance because her daughter was behaving irrationally, falling into hysterics, breaking dishes, and crying "Allah Akbar."
Two human rights movement colleagues, Bahodyr Namazov and Abdullo Tojiboy-ugli, concerned at Urlaeva's strange statements on the phone went to her apartment to visit her, but she refused to open the door to them, saying without her husband's permission she could not let them in.
Urlaeva's colleagues said that they had never seen her behave in this way, even in the past when she was hospitalized, and that she had always behaved normally. They fear that she could have been brainwashed in some fashion.
Tojiboy-ugli said Urlaeva had been preparing for a major speech in Geneva, and had a number of documents on a flash-drive, but this was now missing.
Human rights activists told uznews.net that they hoped to get a comprehensive examination of Urlaeva's condition.
Urlaeva was forcibly hospitalized in 2001 and again in 2005, but international human rights groups protested that this was a punitive use of psychiatric treatment, and ultimately she was released. She held a hunger strike against forcible treatment in 2005, and later obtained an examination from a Russian psychiatric hospital to prove that forcible treatment was not required.
Urlaeva has been warning for months that authorities were trying to put her back in psychiatric hospital as a way of suppressing her human rights activism.
It's hard to know what this story is really about at this point. Urlaeva has been under enormous stress, and undergoing severe disruption in her family, as her domestic partner was reportedly abusing her, and authorities were attempting to remove her partner's nephew whom they cared for.
I haven't heard of the son Denis involved in her story before, although he has apparently put up a comment on this article in uznews.net on March 16, discounting a reader's claim that he was sentenced and jailed. The slew of hateful comments underneath the article give you a tiny taste of the constant harassment and pressure this woman has lived under.
It strikes me that even if she was in good mental health, the constant stress and harassment she has faced from both authorities and various "irate citizens" who may or may not be incited by intelligence agents could cause a breakdown.
I have had long experience with dissidents who have been put in psychiatric hospitals in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet republics and I would have to say that almost without exception, none of them required forcible psychiatric care, but many of them required some kind of treatment for various conditions such as bipolar, depression, etc. You could not expect the doctors in these settings where psychiatry was horribly abused and indeed used as a punitive arm of the state to provide the appropriate treatment.
Urlaeva has done an enormous amount of work over the years documenting basic human rights violations in Uzbekistan that are indisputable, notably the forced use of child labor in the cotton fields and suppression of freedom of expression and assembly, as well as about socio-economic issues such as treatment of disabled, elderly, workers. And whatever her current mental condition, that work stands and shouldn't be discredited -- although likely not only the regime will attempt to discredit her, but also various water-carriers for Karimov and haters of the human rights movement.
Already the pro-Karimov tabloid site infamous for leaking sensational stories about crime and politics has jumped on it, with a headline, "True Believer Urlaeva," claiming that Urlaeva, who was Russian Orthodox, converted to Islam "while recently in Switzerland" (she was actually in Turkey, and planned a later trip to Switzerland in May). "It was exactly this step that caused the psychiatric distress of a woman with heightened sensitivity," snarks uzmetronom.com.
What can you do? It's an old story. I hope that Urlaeva and her family will find the peace and stamina they will need to regain their stability.
