Psychiatric Terror

Psychiatric Terror: using false psychiatric diagnoses to manipulate and control political dissidents, was used by the Soviets, among others. In closed nations, where the government does not tolerate any political opposition, and the civil rights of individuals are ignored, the government is liable to treat its citizens in any way it sees fit.

In the Soviet Union, an individual suspected of conspiring against the government could be labeled as mentally ill, then could be institutionalized indefinitely. This is an abomination to the most basic rights of people. By eliminating a person's right to freely express themselves, in an effort to silence political dissension, the dehumanization which takes place borders on the level achieved in a systematic genocide. The trouble with genocide as it is defined, is that it only applies to the mass killings of a race or ethnicity. If a mass killing takes place based on political beliefs, the genocide convention cannot be applied, as it currently reads.

Also, even if the Russian government didn't necessarily 'pull the lever', it sought to remove an entire group of people from its nation. Individuals who were diagnosed with mental disorders, due to their political beliefs, were sent for years, perhaps decades to mental hospitals, or sent to work camps out in siberia. Either way, these people almost never made it out alive, and the genocide conventions need to take these other scenerios into consideration in defining what a genocide is.