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UKCP calls for the release of Syrian psychoanalyst Rafah Nached

25 October 2011

A Syrian psychoanalyst, Rafah Nached, has been imprisoned by the authorities since early September, apparently for conducting a seminar on fear. Psychoanalysts worldwide have protested at the abuse of human rights on the part of the Syrian government that this represents. Below is UKCP's letter to all the MEPs in the country, sent on 25 October 2011 in time for the debate on the matter in the European Parliament on 27 October 2011.

I write as the Chair of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) concerning the incarceration by the Syrian authorities, on utterly spurious grounds, of the psychoanalyst Rafah Nached.

UKCP's 7,000 members include 1,500 psychoanalysts, but all of us are appalled that Rafah Nached has been imprisoned for doing no more than performing her academic and clinical functions. It is a gross abuse of human rights and we agree with the call for as stringent action as possible in connection with this matter.

There is an extra dimension to this scandal. Psychoanalysis, in common with all the psychotherapies, is critically concerned with freedom of mind. Beginning at the heart of Europe at the end of the nineteenth century, the insights and approaches of psychoanalysis have spread to many areas of the world. But the heritage is European and the discipline is one of the great creations of European culture. It therefore behoves the European Parliament to take the matter as seriously as possible.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Andrew Samuels
Chair, United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy



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UK Council for Psychotherapy

UK Council for Psychotherapy

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