Citizens Commission on Human Rights

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR; also sometimes known as the Citizens Committee on Human Rights) is an advocacy group established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and libertarian psychiatrist Thomas Szasz. Its stated goal is to fight what it describes as "human rights crimes" by mental health professionals, stating that electroshocks, racism, psychosurgery, involuntary commitment and child medication are all practices which are rife in psychiatry.

CCHR's views on psychiatry
CCHR's views on psychiatry are a straightforward reflection of the position put forward by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, whose writings express a very strong anti-psychiatry viewpoint. The practice of psychiatry is considered by Scientologists to be a form of extortion based upon both secular antipsychiatrists and Scientology doctrine, stating there is no biological evidence to support psychiatric theories of mental disorders. However, unlike secular antipsychiatrists, according to Hubbard all psychiatrists are criminals: "There is not one institutional psychiatrist alive who, by ordinary criminal law, could not be arraigned and convicted of extortion, mayhem and murder. Our files are full of evidence on them."

CCHR follows this line very closely, for instance describing psychiatrists and psychologists as "Professional Rapists, Perverts and Pedophiles" It has developed Psych Crime/ report psych crime, a database of criminal convictions of people working in the mental health sector (psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, mental health executives, social workers, clerks and aides) to which it invites members of the public to contribute.

Although CCHR states its purpose publicly as being "to investigate and expose psychiatric violations of human rights and to clean up the field of mental healing," in its own fund-raising publications — issued primarily to Scientologists — it espouses a goal of eliminating psychiatry altogether and invites contributors to sign up to that goal: "Be part of the team that is taking out psychiatry!" ; "The time to put an end to psychiatry and it's criminal practices is NOW!" ; "Get rid of the psychs! That is just what CCHR is doing."

The official Scientology FAQ reads, "psychiatric theories that man is a mere animal have been used to rationalize, for example, the wholesale slaughter of human beings in World Wars I and II."

CCHR's activities
CCHR has organized media campaigns against various psychiatrists, psychiatric organizations and pharmaceutical companies, including Eli Lilly, the manufacturer of Prozac. Its campaign is said to have caused a major fall in sales of Prozac, causing great commercial damage to the company. The group has campaigned against the use of Ritalin for the treatment of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, a disorder CCHR argues does not exist. This campaign was part of the Ritalin class action lawsuits against the manufacturer of Ritalin (Novartis), CHADD, and the American Psychiatric Association (APA). All five lawsuits were dismissed in 2002. It has also campaigned against legislation on mental health issues, as well as encouraging legislators to sponsor laws more in line with its own views.

CCHR has published an extensive report of its activities, with references to sources of government issued reports such as FDA Public Health Advisory (an FDA website).

CCHR's aggressive stance has provoked controversy. In 1988 the group alleged that Professor Sir Martin Roth of Newcastle University had used LSD in tests on mental patients in the 1960s. The statements were publicised in the Newcastle Times newspaper, which was ordered by an English court to pay "very substantial" libel damages to Roth after the court found that CCHR's claims were "highly defamatory" and "utterly false."

For their part, psychiatrists and psychologists have responded dismissively to CCHR's allegations. Some commentators have noted similarities between CCHR's campaigns against psychiatry and other religiously-motivated organisations' campaigns against scientific aspects of birth control and evolution, amongst other topics.

"Psychiatry: An Industry of Death" museum
In December 2005, CCHR opened the "Psychiatry: An Industry of Death" Museum in Hollywood, California. The museum has displays alleging psychiatry's long-standing "master plan" for world domination, Adolf Hitler's central role in the plan, and in the words of reporter Andrew Gumbel, "a display holding psychiatry to blame for the deaths of Ernest Hemingway, Del Shannon, Billie Holiday, Kurt Cobain, Spalding Gray, and just about every other entertainment celebrity who did not happen to die of strictly natural causes." The opening event on December 17 2005[1], was attended by well-known Scientologists, including Priscilla Presley, Lisa Marie Presley, Jenna Elfman, Danny Masterson, Giovanni Ribisi, Leah Remini, Catherine Bell, and Anne Archer.[2]

Chelmsford Hospital and DST
From 1988 to 1990 the Australian government held the Chelmsford royal commission inquiry into Deep Sleep Therapy (DST). For a decade prior, the CCHR had been pushing for an investigation of the Chelmsford Private Hospital in New South Wales, and its head, Dr. Harry Bailey, who had been practicing DST from 1963 to 1979.

The CCHR's website quotes Honorable Justice John (J. P.) Slattery, Royal Commissioner, as stating that the CCHR "contributed considerably to advance the cause of the Chelmsford patients in their campaign for an open inquiry into the hospital." The inquiry discovered that deep sleep therapy had killed 26 patients, 22 patients who had it had killed themselves, and close to a thousand had suffered brain damage. Of the former patients, 152 received reparations from a fund totaling in excess of 5 million dollars. Chelmsford Hospital was forced to close in 1990, and two of its psychiatric staff were brought on charges in 1992. Dr. Bailey himself stepped down in 1979 due to the CCHR's protest campaign, and committed suicide by drug overdose in 1985, the night before he was subpoenaed to appear in court. His suicide note read, in part: "Let it be known that the Scientologists and the forces of madness have won."

Riverside Community Care
On October 5 2006, National Mental Health Screening Day, the CCHR picketed outside of Riverside Community Care in Wakefield, Massachusetts, holding a protest rally against mental health screening. According to journalist Gary Band in the Wakefield Observer, "The protest fell somewhat flat because Riverside has not conducted these screenings since 2001."

CCHR and Scientology
A persistently controversial aspect of CCHR is the question of its relationship with Scientology. For its part, CCHR states that it is "an independent organization [...] compris[ing] members of the Church of Scientology and many other people of various denominations, faiths and cultural beliefs," and the Church of Scientology International acknowledges sponsoring CCHR. Although it is incorporated separately, it is regarded by the United States Government as part of the Church of Scientology's network of corporate entities. In 1993, the US Internal Revenue Service granted CCHR tax exemption as part of an agreement with the Church of Scientology International and Religious Technology Center (RTC) under which the RTC took responsibility for CCHR's tax liabilities.

CCHR's relationship with the Church of Scientology is mediated through the Church's Office of Special Affairs (OSA). Critics of Scientology have charged that CCHR is merely a "front group" for the Church and have pointed to internal Church documents that appear to describe CCHR's campaigns as a means of extending the influence of the Church of Scientology. Until recent years, a number of CCHR offices were listed at Church of Scientology Org locations.

In one example, a leaked document outlining a training course for the job of President of the Church of Scientology International requires the trainee to demonstrate "How a PR Campaign Exposing the Psychiatric Drugging of School Children in a Community or Country Would Build a Pro Area Control for the Church of Scientology". An internal training course from the Office of Special Affairs reportedly requires the trainee to undertake exercises such as devising a "campaign that you can actually execute from your hat ['job'] to help cut off the funding to psychiatrists in your area." Reed Eliot Slatkin (born 22 January 1949 in Detroit, Michigan) was an initial investor and co-founder of EarthLink and the perpetrator of the largest Ponzi scheme in the United States since that conducted by Charles Ponzi himself. Slatkin was an ordained Scientology minister[1] and long-time adherent of the group, as were many of his victims. Slatkin's scheme collapsed in 2000 following complaints to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from victims seeking to withdraw their money from the scheme. Slatkin had raised some $200 million from over 500 wealthy investors, including many Hollywood celebrities, and funnelled much of the money to the Church of Scientology and their related entities, such as the CCHR.

Survivors group
Mind Freedom, an international coalition of thousands of individual members in several nations, is an organization that identifies itself as rooted in the psychiatric survivors movement and fights against what it asserts are human rights violations in the mental health system. The organization states in its website:

MindFreedom attorney David Atkin has provided a letter to clarify and emphasize that MindFreedom has no connection to CCHR or Church of Scientology. This clarification is not to criticize any organization, but to just state the facts.

Dr. Peter Breggin
Psychiatrist Peter Breggin worked with CCHR from 1972 until 1974. Breggin dissociated himself from the organization in 1974, having "found myself opposed to Scientology's values, agenda, and tactics." In 1994 Breggin said that Eli Lilly (maker of the antidepressant Prozac) had tried to discredit him and his book Talking Back to Prozac by improperly linking him to the Church of Scientology and labeling his views as "Neo-Scientology." In response to what he said were "smear tactics" by Eli Lilly, Breggin said:

I have nothing whatsoever to do with Scientology, a controversial religious group that frequently criticizes psychiatry. Instead, for the last twenty years, I have spoken out against cults in general, and specifically against Scientology. [...] For two decades I have refused to have anything to do with Scientology and have criticized it hundreds of time [sic] to the media, on the air, and in public speeches and workshops.

Breggin later clarified that on certain points he was still in agreement with some of CCHR's antipsychiatric views, making a point of thanking and supporting Tom Cruise following Cruise's panning of psychiatry on national television:

Scientologists seem to share a number of views about psychiatry with me, including everything Tom said. In fact, I'd go further. Modern biological psychiatry is a materialistic religion masquerading as a science.

Other secular antipsychiatrists
Despite sharing notable antipsychiatrists' views on some issues, Scientology doctrine does differ in some respects. Scientology has promoted psychiatry-related conspiracy theories, including that September 11 was caused by psychiatrists and that psychiatrists caused the universe's havoc billions of years ago. Scientologists are religiously committed never to take psychiatric drugs and to reject psychology outright. These positions are shared by few, if any, secular critics of psychiatry.