Amnesty: Mental health needs the whole of Government to act

by Saoirsí Thu Feb 25, 2010 12:53

I'm sorry to be blunt: but what exactly does the health budget allocation of a first world nation have to do with an international human rights organisation?

It's not that this isn't a valid or important issue for domestic public policy debate - but why on earth should this be a focus of an organisation whose historic core mission has been the release of prisoners of conscience, prevention of torture etc?

Again, I'm not trying to be insulting to Amnesty, but I just think over the past few years they have completely lost the plot in Ireland: this a country with extraordinary renditions conducted through it's airports with the complicity of the government; with a lack of public accountability of it's policing and intelligence services - and abuses of the system by same; the threats against personal privacy, political criticism, dissent etc. Where is Amnesty? Apparently, they are now a domestic health services pressure group, to encourage better quality care, in a comparatively well-off, white english-speaking european country.

What has this got to do with "hardcore" international human rights, considering the abuses of same abroad, and the the apparent neglect of actual active state abuses in out own country - as opposed to a policy debate on resource allocation? I'm sorry, but there is something terribly middle-class, navel-gazing, and wishy-washy about this compared to Amnesty's traditional activities in the past.

by Mark C Fri Feb 26, 2010 09:37

Saoirsi,

A number of years ago, at an annual convention, Amnesty members voted to change their modus operandi from 'just' the prisoner idea to what was term 'full spectrum human rights'. This means that they are campaigning on human rights right across the board.

For many, yourself included probably, mental health issues are human rights issues, so Amnesty is campaigning on this issue - as it is against FGM, blood diamonds, and more.

by nora boyle - mental health action Sun Feb 28, 2010 16:51

saoirsi ,you are wrong to suggest that the suffering of mental health patients is not important enough for Amnesty to bother about.
perhaps you are unaware of what goes on in mental hospitals- forced straight jacketing, forced removal of clothing, forced incarcaration, forced injections and huge doses of masses of experimental drugs, forced electric shock 'therapy'' , forced isolation 'therapy' (actually punishment for the purposes of disipline and control).
To say Amnesty should have better things to do is either denial of the horrors inflicted of society's most vunerable people or discrimination similiar to racism. Unfortunatly this kind of thinking is widespread, that activists should only care about prisoners in guatonomo and treat other irish people like 5th class citizens.

by Saoirsí Mon Mar 01, 2010 11:37

... to my admittedly blunt criticism.

But again, it's not a question of dismissing mental health concerns as a valid topic of public and political debate.

It's a question regarding the dangers of "rights inflation" - the devaluation of human rights as a category of human concern, by applying it so broadly that it loses it's special moral, philosophical, and political power for motivation.

Nora: if the active, coercive abuse of mental health patients/incarcerated were the issue, I would have no problem with this.

But it's clear from the article that this is not what this is about: this is about more resource allocation for better health services, in what is a comparatively affluent Western society. Colm O'Gorman already had a special interest group to lobby on this. I'm sorry, but I simply don't see how such a budgetary and domestic policy debate - no matter how valid - relates to the issue of human rights. Simply invoking "human rights" doesn't make it so. One could equally invoke it in the context of food, housing, a clean environment, better schools and so on. But the end process in all of this is to make human rights apply to everything that is a political concern - and then the problem is, what is so special about human rights?

And this has a potential direct negative impact on important areas such as I touched on - which both of you ignored, by the way, and which I am arguing ought to be the important core of concern. What about CIA rendition flights of "enemy non-combatants" not subject to Geneva or Civil Rights protection being flown through Irish airspace, on their way to be tortured by third party governments? What about the abuse of the policing and criminal investigation system to invade privacy online or through telecommunications? What about the lack of democratic accountability and oversight of police, intelligence gathering (Ireland has not even a department rep. to report to the Dáil, unlike other countries), family courts - or mental health services? What about the criminalising of opinion or thought - consider the ridiculously broad anti-blasphemy bill.

Those are just some examples. In addition, things like these are concrete, can have defined solutions - or at least defined problems. Things become considerably less concrete, and less defined as the issues are broadened and borders are blurred - and much more subject to personal and political vagaries of opinion.