WMA Resolution on the Abuse of Psychiatry

Adopted by the 53^rd WMA General Assembly, Washington, DC, USA, October 2002
Revised by the 63^rd WMA General Assembly, Bangkok 2012
Reaffirmed by the 217^th WMA Council, Seoul (online), April 2021
and reaffirmed with minor revisions by the 230th WMA Council, Porto, Portugal, October 2025

The World Medical Association (WMA) notes with concern evidence from a number of countries that individuals, including political dissidents, religious practitioners and social activists, have been detained in psychiatric institutions and subjected to unjustified psychiatric treatment for repressive purposes, and not for therapeutic purposes in the context of substantiated psychiatric conditions.

The WMA:

1. Declares that such detention and unwarranted treatment are abusive, and constitute grave violations of medical ethics and human rights;
2. Calls on physicians, including psychiatrists, to resist involvement in these abusive practices;
3. Calls on its constituent members to support their physician members who resist involvement in these abuses;
4. Calls on governments to stop abusing medicine and psychiatry in this manner, and on non-governmental organizations and the World Health Organization to work to end these abuses; and
5. Calls on governments to uphold the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states that “all persons are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to the equal protection of the law.”