Political Abuse of Psychiatry in the Soviet Union and China: A Rough Guide for Bystanders
J. Birley,
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
30(1): 145-147, 2002.
The fundamental issue really concerns the morality of the bystander. In most cases,
most of us are neither victims nor perpetrators of human rights violations; we occupy the role of
bystanders. Even though some of us may intellectually appreciate the ethical duty to aid and rescue
suffering strangers, by far the greater number of us are sitting behind a veil of indifference which
prevents us from acting. (Morton Winston, 2001)