Baptist freed from psychiatric hospital (12/27/87)

Baptist freed from psychiatric hospital

WASHINGTON - On December 1, just one week prior to General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev's arrival in the United States, the Soviet Baptist Anna Chertkova, imprisoned for the past 14 years, was released from a Soviet psychiatric hospital, reported Christian Response International.

Ms. Chertkova has been a subject of great concern among religious human rights activists in the West. She was arrested in August 1973 and sentenced in 1974 to an indefinite period in a psychiatric hospital and diagnosed as being "criminally insane."

She was charged with violating article 170-1 of the Kazakh Criminal Code, "deliberately disseminating wrong and libelous information about the Soviet state and its social order." Her actual crimes were simply speaking openly about her religious convictions and for distributing Bibles and other religious materials.

According to Steven Snyder, president of Christian Solidarity International (CSI), a Washington group that has been advocating Ms. Chertkova's release, "She had been undergoing treatment for what Soviet psychiatrists call, 'sluggish paranoid schizophrenia,' using neuroleptic drugs, a drug which in high doses causes harmful side effects. While detained, she has not been allowed to correspond with anyone besides her mother and her sister. Her food ration was very small."

In 1980, her Bible, which she managed to keep hidden for some years, was found and taken from her. Her doctors said, "This book is an example of the very thing we are trying to heal her of."

Upon Ms. Chertkova's release, she called her sister in West Germany and expressed her thanks to all those in the West that have prayed and petitioned for her release. She also stated that she would like to leave the Soviet Union as soon as possible. She feels her freedom is limited as long as she remains in the Soviet Union.

Ms. Chertkova is only one of several hundred, possibly thousands, that have been seized and interned in psychiatric hospitals over the years. These so-called hospitals, according to Mr. Snyder, "Are no more than prisons inside a prison which are beyond public view where all forms of arbitrary treatments are possible."

He added, "It is believed that the majority of all those currently detained in these institutions are people with deep political or religious convictions."

According to Ms. Snyder, "Chertkova's release, even though welcomed, is just another token measure.

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