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Mental Disability Rights International

February 2009

Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI) recipient of American Psychiatric Association’s 2009 Human Rights Award

Arlington, VA – The American Psychiatric Association (APA) announced this week that MDRI is the recipient of their 2009 Human Rights Award, bestowed by the Council on Global Psychiatry, a component of the APA. Established in 1990, the award is given to “individuals and organizations whose efforts exemplify the capacity of human beings to act courageously and effectively to prevent human rights violations, to protect others from human rights violations and their psychiatric consequences, or help victims recover from human rights abuses.”

According to Lawrence Hartmann, MD, and Chairperson of the Council on Global Psychiatry, the award is being given to MDRI for “your overall career and life achievement as a champion of human rights.”

Past recipients of the APA Human Rights Award include President Jimmy Carter and Roselyn Carter, Senators Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici, Justice Richard Goldstone and Physicians for Human Rights.

The award will be presented to MDRI at the APA’s annual meeting, to be held in San Francisco May 16 through 21, 2009. To read more about the APA award click here.

MDRI featured in Mother Jones Magazine

San Francisco, CA – MDRI’s work is prominently featured in the March/April issue of Mother Jones magazine, with a focus on the photographs by renowned documentary photographer Eugene Richards. Richards has travelled with MDRI for over a decade, documenting the horrific and egregious abuses suffered by people with mental disabilities. He has volunteered over the years, capturing the pain and suffering, through his gifted lens, to help MDRI bring attention to the world’s forgotten people.

The six page spread in the progressive, and often controversial magazine, features photos from our work in Mexico and Paraguay. But it could be anywhere. The same scenes we have witnessed in 25 countries over the years and still more are calling us – “please come to my country, children are dying, put in cages, killed at birth, locked away forever.”

If you would like to help us protect the human rights of children and adults with mental disabilities worldwide, please click here .... We need you and depend on you. Thank you.

About us:

Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI) is dedicated to promoting the human rights and full participation in society of people with mental disabilities worldwide.

MDRI creates change by bringing worldwide attention to human rights abuses against people with disabilities, supporting local advocacy movements in targeted regions, and engaging in international disability rights policy advocacy.