Tag: detention

Seasonal Appeal 2024

in I’m A Person, My Home, My Choice

In 2024, our client Victor achieved a major victory at the European Court of Human Rights. His experience of torture and discrimination as a young person in Moldova was recognised as a grave human rights violation by the highest court in Europe. The judgment represents a major step forward for Victor and others in similar…
Joint statement on suspension of the draft Additional Protocol to the Oviedo Convention

in Article, Belgium, Bulgaria, Campaigns, Content type, Countries, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Hungary, I’m A Person, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, My Home, My Choice, Poland, Press Release, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom

Joint statement welcoming the suspension of the adoption of the draft Additional Protocol to the Oviedo Convention We, organisations of persons with disabilities, non-governmental organisations, international and human rights bodies, including national human rights institutions and equality bodies, welcome the decisions taken by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe that suspends the…
Romani man wins unlawful detention case against Slovak Police

in I’m A Person, My Home, My Choice, Press Release, Slovakia, Uncategorised

Bratislava, Brussels, Budapest, 4 May 2022: The Bratislava I District Court have ruled in favour of a 30-year-old Romani man with an intellectual disability who was illegally held in police custody for four weeks in 2013. The Court, in its first instance judgment, awarded the man from Moldava nad Bodvou €4,000 in compensation for his…
Slovakia: UN Committee against Torture condemns the use of netted cage-beds

in My Home, My Choice, Slovakia

Lucia Černácova is an autistic woman with an intellectual disability. In 2006, faced with a lack of support to take care of her daughter at home, her mother had no choice but to accept that Lucia is placed in a Social Care Facility. Lucia is a person who needs individual attention and support, but the…
Ukraine: Validity urges European Court of Human Rights to condemn forensic psychiatric detention

in I’m A Person, Ukraine

Recently, Validity intervened in the case of Tymoshenko v. Ukraine brought by a young woman with a psychosocial disability who was detained and treated against her will in a psychiatric hospital. The Ukrainian prosecution accused Ms Tymoshenko of hurting another person. Eventually, the criminal court decided that she could not understand and control her…
Involuntary Detention and Treatment: European Court of Human Rights Rejects Request to Provide an Opinion on Interpretation of Oviedo Convention

in Article, I’m A Person, My Home, My Choice

The European Court of Human Rights has rejected a request from the Council of Europe’s Committee on Bioethics (DH-BIO) to provide an advisory opinion on questions related to involuntary treatment and involuntary detention of persons with psychosocial disabilities under Article 29 of the Oviedo Convention. DH-BIO’s request for an advisory opinion came in the midst…
European Disability Movement Demands Council of Europe #WithdrawOviedo on World Mental Health Day

in Article, Campaigns, Content type, I’m A Person, My Home, My Choice

Validity has joined a coalition of European organisations for persons with disabilities to demand that the Council of Europe withdraws a dangerous proposal to legalise forced detention and treatment of people with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities in breach of international human rights law. A proposed treaty on “persons with mental disorders” which has been under…
Validity challenges Russia at European Court after Constitutional Court refuses to allow people with disabilities to visit their families

in Article, I’m A Person, My Home, My Choice, Russia, Uncategorised

In a disappointing decision issued last week, the Russian Constitutional Court rejected the right of a woman in a social care institution to visit her father. The two had brought the case complaining that the social care institution where the daughter resides unconstitutionally prevented her from leaving the institution to visit her father at his…
Slovakia: UN says stop putting people in cages and get them out of institutions

in Article, My Home, My Choice, Slovakia

The UN Human Rights Committee has recommended that the Slovakian Government abolish cage beds and restraints in psychiatric institutions and speed up the evacuation of people with disabilities out of institutions and into the community. More than 40,000 people with disabilities live in Slovakia’s social care and psychiatric institutions. These places segregate people from the…
Russia: For first time Russia admits overcrowding and injustice in psychiatric hospital

in Article, My Home, My Choice, Russia

After six years of litigation at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, the Russian Government has admitted violations of our client, Rafael Usmanov’s rights. He was detained in an overcrowded secure psychiatric hospital and denied any opportunity of having his detention reviewed. It is the first psychiatric overcrowding case in the Court’s history. In 2002,…