Murmansk, Russia
Russian authorities committed a prominent opposition activist to a psychiatric clinic this week, after she wrote an article alleging child abuse in a local hospital. Larisa Arap is a member of the United Civil Front, a pro-democracy group led by former chess champ Garry Kasparov. Friends and colleagues said she exhibited no signs of mental illness. They said police showed up at a doctor’s office where Arap was having a routine exam and shoved her into an ambulance. “This smacks of the Soviet-era practice of locking dissidents in psychiatric clinics,” said fellow activist Marina Litvinovich. In the 1960s, Soviet authorities forced hundreds of dissidents to undergo “re-education” in mental hospitals.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Israel: Losing the American publicFeature A recent poll finds American support for Israel's military action in Gaza has fallen from 50% to 32%
-
Unmaking AmericansFeature Trump is threatening to revoke the citizenship of foreign-born Americans. Could he do that?
-
EPA: A bonfire of climate change regulationsFeature The Environmental Protection Agency wants to roll back its 'endangerment finding,' a ruling that lets the agency regulate carbon emissions
