North Shore Times (New Zealand)
Mall hosts anti-psychiatry exhibition
An exhibition in Highbury Mall in Birkenhead condemns psychiatry as the ‘‘industry of death’’ which ‘‘denies the most basic of human rights’’. On graphic posterboards, it attacks electroshock therapy and suggests naturopathy as one alternative for the mentally ill.
But visitors to the ‘mental health exhibition’ would need sharp eyes to realise that the displays hosted by an incorporated society called the Citizens Commission for Human Rights were backed by the Church of Scientology.
It’s the second time in two years the CCHR has run such a pop-up exhibition in a suburban mall, having been asked to leave the Westfield centre in Manukau in 2017. And their presence at Highbury has led to complaints from locals and an undertaking from the mall’s owner they will not rent to the organisation again.
Jonathan Coleman, Northcote’s MP, a qualified GP and former Minister of Health, condemned the exhibition. ‘‘I totally disagree with those views [espoused by the CCHR].’’
‘‘There is a strong scientific basis in psychiatry ... To say that psychiatry is wrong is dangerous and to say that you shouldn’t see trained professionals if you are mentally ill is dangerous.’’
Spokesman for the Church of Scientology in New Zealand, Mike Ferriss, said Coleman’s comments were ‘‘utter rubbish’’ and the psychiatric industry had endangered many more people
‘‘To say that psychiatry is wrong is dangerous’’
Jonathan Coleman
than an exhibition could.
CCHR executive director Steve Green said Coleman’s comments were ‘‘very bad manners’’ and a ‘‘horrible thing to say when we’re out there doing good’’.
‘‘What does he know of us to come up with that type of accusation?’’
The CCHR was founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology in Los Angeles, and the New Zealand arm followed in 1976.
Green, a practising scientologist, described the CCHR as a ‘‘completely voluntary organisation’’ which provided its services for free to an underrepresented minority.
Ferriss said the organisation’s membership numbered a ‘‘few hundred’’, and included a nurse, a GP and a naturopath but no mental health professionals.
Some locals were outraged by their presence in the mall. One local man, who paid three visits to the exhibition, said: ‘‘I expressed my dismay at them and asked how they would feel if someone who required psychiatric help ended up killing themselves because they didn’t get the right treatment?’’
Another local businessman, who said he didn’t want to be named because he was worried about the church’s response, said: ‘‘I am very worried that impressionable local teenagers hanging around the mall during the school holidays could be hookline-and-sinkered by these people.’’
He was among those who had complained to the mall.
Highbury’s letting agent, James Devlin, said it was the first time mall owners New Zealand Retail Property Group had leased to the organisation and said he ‘‘wouldn’t have thought’’ they would do so again.