{"id":989,"date":"2004-07-21T12:22:08","date_gmt":"2004-07-21T20:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2004\/07\/21\/the-power-to-influence\/"},"modified":"2004-07-21T12:22:08","modified_gmt":"2004-07-21T20:22:08","slug":"the-power-to-influence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=989","title":{"rendered":"The Power to Influence"},"content":{"rendered":"

For years, many concerned about human rights and disability rights have been trying to get countries like The Czech Republic (along with Slovakia, Slovenia, and Hungary) to stop the use of “caged beds,” <\/a>often used to control those with mental illness and\/or disabilities.<\/p>\n

Despite being condemned as a violation of human rights by the EU, The Council of Europe, Amnesty International and the UN, caged beds continue to be used in the four new EU accession countries, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary and The Czech Republic. <\/div>\n

That was a quote from an article on July 7. A week later, The Czech Republic has made a move to eliminate all of it’s caged beds. What was the critical difference in making them change their minds this time?<\/p>\n

A letter. Not just any letter, but a letter from a very influential person, calling for the elimination of these beds. So, who could this incredibly powerful and influential person be? Kofi Anan? Nelson Mandela? Madeline Albright?<\/p>\n

No. J.K. Rowling<\/a>. Yes, that’s right — a single letter from the famed children’s author was what prompted the change.<\/p>\n

On 13 July the Czech Minister of Health Jozef Kubinyi issued a press statement stating that he had instructed directors of all health institutions to immediately cease use of ‘cage beds’, calling for the elimination of ‘net beds’ by the end 2004, and advising replacement of these beds with seclusion rooms and increased numbers of staff to improve care for people with mental disabilities. This decision was made days after the authorities received a letter of concern from “Harry Potter” author JK Rowling.<\/div>\n
“We have been following the situation <\/a>for some time and the letter from Ms Rowling was one reason we decided to act now,” she added. <\/div>\n

.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For years, many concerned about human rights and disability rights have been trying to get countries like The Czech Republic (along with Slovakia, Slovenia, and Hungary) to stop the use of “caged beds,” often used to control those with mental … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disabled-rights-issues","category-international-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/989\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}