By Clare Swinney, Member of Scholars For 9/11 Truth & Justice
August 21, 2009
I was wrongly diagnosed as delusional by the psychiatric staff of Ward 7 at Northland Base Hospital in Whangarei and held hospital against my will for 11 days in mid-2006, because I maintained the attacks of 9/11 were orchestrated by criminal elements inside the US Administration.
A definition of delusional: relating to, based on, or affected by delusions. A delusion: a false belief strongly held in spite of invalidating evidence, especially as a symptom of mental illness.
In light of the definition, one of the most astounding aspects to the ordeal was that when I met with the chief psychiatrist, Dr Carlos Zubaran for two formal mental health assessments, I held Issue 3 of Uncensored, which is shown in the picture above, and asked him to look at information related to the 9/11 attacks. This magazine contained an article I had written entitled: Why Does TVNZ Lie To Us About 9/11?, which cited evidence which proved the official fable was a lie. Yet reminiscent of the fabled vampires afraid of the light of day, he refused to even cast his eyes over it during both of the so-called “assessments.”
Another astounding aspect to what occurred was that Section 4 of the New Zealand Mental Health Act makes it clear no one can be judged to be mentally ill solely on the basis of their political beliefs. The District Inspector of Mental Health in Northland – barrister, Julie Young; Bridget Westenra, the lawyer she appointed to assist me and the staff of Ward 7, including the chief psychiatrist, did not appear to know this. As can be seen, it is written in layman’s language on page 33 of Chapter 2 of Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1992, which is on the Ministry of Health’s own website: ‘You cannot be considered to have a mental disorder just because of your: political, religious, or cultural beliefs…’.
As this Judgement shows, because of his reluctance to scrutinize the evidence related to 9/11 and his apparent ignorance of the law, nine days into my incarceration, Dr Zubaran still held the misguided belief that I suffered from a “delusional disorder” because of my political beliefs.
The evidence that shows the official story of 9/11 was indeed a lie is now overwhelming. We now have what has been referred to as the “loaded gun” – this is the unignited nano-thermite, a highly-advanced explosive substance, which was far too sophisticated a composite to have originated from a cave in Afghanistan. Think military. Think US government.
The following article, which relates to what occurred in Ward 7, was published in Issue 8 of Uncensored. Thankfully, since writing about what happened and making numerous phone calls, plus sending many letters, as well as supplying numerous DVDs to the staff of Ward 7 to show them the truth about 9/11 – and then finally threatening to protest outside the hospital, the Clinical Director of Mental Health & Addiction Services in Northland sent an apology in August 2008, which can be viewed here.
Dr Zubaran did not apologise.
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POLITICAL PRISONER My photo
Clare Swinney brought a complaint to the Broadcasting Standards Authority pointing out that TVNZ’s claim that Osama bin Laden carried out the attacks of 9/11 was an outright lie. Shortly afterwards, she was threatened and then incarcerated in a psychiatric ward. Following a week of compulsory treatment, the head psychiatrist told a judge that she should remain in hospital, as her belief that 9/11 was an inside job was evidence she was “delusional.” The judge agreed. This is her extraordinary story:
On the morning of June the 6, 2006, two social workers came to the door and advised that they’d come to take me to the public hospital’s psychiatric facility, as they’d heard I might be suicidal. Although I ventured to enlighten them I wasn’t, they did not listen as their unit had received a phone call from an ill-informed family member who had said I might be on the verge of killing myself. As it was apparent from their demeanour that my psychological state was a foregone conclusion, I asked if my flatmate, Brian Kennedy could come with us and attest that I was fine and most certainly not suicidal.
I picked up my bag and appropriate evidence for the meeting and walked anxiously to their car, where one of them warned that the two police officers who had driven into the driveway, were there to stop me from running away. In retrospect, I probably would have done if had known the emotional cost of what lay ahead.
At Whangarei Hospital, Brian and I were transferred into Ward 7, which is a secure, locked up area, and then herded into a meeting room, where we waited for several nail-biting minutes before the middle-aged psychiatric registrar, Dr Mothafar Abass entered and introduced himself. In a rather detached fashion, he advised that he would be conducting my suicide risk assessment, and then hurried through it, as if he was pressed for time.
Mindful that this was to determine whether I was to be committed under the Mental Health Act, I found his manner disturbing to say the very least. He did not appear to fully understand me, nor did he give me sufficient time to explain myself to a level appropriate for this kind of evaluation, and in one instance, he even spoke over me in a rush to get to the next question. For instance, when he inquired if I had been treated for depression, I replied I had, but wasn’t given an opportunity to explain that it wasn’t relevant to this assessment, as it was substance-induced, caused by sniffing a general anaesthetic intermittently when a teenager. Likewise, when he asked if I had a sense of hopelessness about the future, I replied I did, but had no chance to clarify that it was based in reality, experienced by some of my friends also and related to the political and environmental state of the earth. It wasn’t a core symptom of suicidality in this case, as I could see he assumed it was.
Then came the big issue of my supposedly being suicidal. As I told Dr Abass, but not in this detail, the story began in May 2006, following my complaints to TVNZ and the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) about a TV1 news item which placed the blame for 9/11 fallaciously on Osama bin Laden, [1]. Paradoxically, while the BSA chose to “decline to determine” my complaint, they became propagandists themselves by alleging that Osama bin Laden’s “involvement [in 9/11] is a widely accepted fact supported by the weight of credible evidence,” [2].
As many Uncensored readers now know, there is not a shred of hard evidence to show bin Laden had anything to do with 9/11, and even Dick Cheney had acknowledged this, [3]. Consequently, on May 6th, two days after the BSA decision was released, I e-mailed their office and asked why the BSA panel had failed to take Cheney’s pivotal admission regarding bin Laden into account, that “evidence has never been forthcoming.” I further stated, “Their failure to do so is utterly disgraceful in my opinion, as it is indicative that they are failing in tower collapsing 9/11 their duty to do proper research prior to arriving at important decisions and therefore making a farce out of their obligation to serve the public.”
As well as poking a spanner in the works there, I had been distributing 9/11-truth DVDs to people in the New Zealand media and posting 9/11 related information on Internet newsgroups. While I knew I was courting danger, I continued to do so because I believed that doing nothing was ultimately more dangerous.
I received a number of veiled death threats via e-mail between late May and early June 2006, which included, “You are right about the assassination part,” and “I like to pull my guns out and shoot at moving targets,” while a number of benign messages received during the same period, were accompanied by a photo of a man holding a shot gun. I believed they were from the Security Intelligence Service, (SIS), who had targeted me for a psychological operation – a psyops – because I was a political activist challenging the validity of the government’s portrayal of 9/11.
Although I didn’t have the opportunity to tell Dr Abass this, I speculated that as a whole these e-mails were designed to prime me with fear for a subsequent encounter with a man, who looked the part of a cold-war assassin, which took place on June 1st. This pallid-skinned, clean-shaven man with dark blond hair, who was dressed in expensive-looking black clothing and was sporting an army-style hair cut, looked out of place in Whangarei. He came uncomfortably close up behind me while I waited at a major intersection in town on June 1st. There was no reason for him to have come as close as he did, unless he had wanted to intimidate me, so I stepped several meters to the left to put a safe distance between us. When the buzzer signalled that it was time to cross, I walked purposefully slowly and got directly behind him. When we reached the pavement on the other side of the road, he glanced backwards briefly, his cold grey-blue eyes scanning my face to see if I was watching him, and then he clenched and unclenched his right hand four times. I carried on walking and saw he had stopped on a corner and was watching me, and then when I looked back again a few seconds later, he had gone.
I was absolutely terrified by this, particularly so as I was horribly conscious of the content of the threatening e-mails I had received in the days preceding this. (A Englishman researching the New World Order, stated in a letter to the hospital in 2008 that he has heard of this technique being used “often.” His letter is at the end of the post). Consequently, with my heart thumping wildly, I strode to Police Superintendent Viv Rickard, who happened to be in the town Mall at the time, and told him that I believed the SIS was threatening my life because of my work in exposing the truth about 9/11. Rickard said he believed me, but said he thought that others on the police force might not, so advised me to deal with him directly about the matter.
Subsequent to the encounter with the man dressed in black, I had a discussion with a family member about hypothetical scenarios and my very real fears, to the point at which I said that if it were between a man with a gun and tablets, I would prefer the latter. Fortunately however, I received an e-mail on June 2nd, I believed it was from the SIS which intimated that the threats would cease as it appeared I had gotten the message.
Although I tried to get Dr Abass to listen to me about the context in which my statement was made, my hopes sunk like a submarine when his body language indicated he had stopped listening to me and his resolve to commit me was rapidly gathering momentum.
Brian, recognizing my situation was looking bleak, told Dr Abass that as I was so knowledgeable and active in this area of politics, it wasn’t at all surprising I had been threatened. He also advised that he’d seen the e-mails containing threats, and he perceived them as intimidating, and said in spite of these, I wasn’t suicidal – I was fine.
Nonetheless, to my horror, at my assessment’s completion, Dr Abass told me I would be held in the secure unit under the Mental Health Act for 5 days for further assessment. And as if this news wasn’t bad enough, he told me I had not been threatened, I had misinterpreted the messages and that was because I was suffering from a delusional disorder. He said he was prescribing antipsychotic medication to combat this problem and as I was depressed, he told me I should go on a course of antidepressants also.
I sat stunned, the reality of my predicament closing over me like a grave. I was in a prison for the mentally ill, wrongly diagnosed as depressed, delusional, and suicidal because of a case of what I believed to be medical incompetence. I choked down the bile from my anger, approached the door and said: “OK. Take me to my room!”
It came as no surprise, when I demanded to peruse my file with one of my nurses a few days later, to find it littered with misleading comments and Dr Abass had written that Brian was delusional too! I had been perceived, interpreted, construed, and categorized incorrectly. Dr Abass had given me a score of 14 on a suicide scale for which anything over 12 is regarded as “risky.” As my mother had committed suicide, my score was raised from what would have been 11 to 14, and as he’d made inferences based on incomplete information, the full score belied my condition warranted hospitalization.
Magazine Article I'd written Showed I Was Sane
Magazine Article I'd Written Which Proved That I Was Not Delusional
A young nurse escorted me down a foreboding corridor, to a small dowdy room with two single beds, two cupboards and a hand basin in it. I felt so disempowered; I lay face down on my bed for over four hours, agonizing that I was vulnerable to misdiagnosis by other staff members because of what I knew as a journalist. As Aldous Huxley had put it, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.”
I found my first day in Ward 7 very troubling to say the least, for a number of reasons. Nurses came in to check on me and although I hadn’t had anything to eat for around 20 hours, ( as I didn’t have the chance to eat my breakfast before being picked up from home), I was offered Valium before I was offered food or a cup of tea. It didn’t seem to concern the staff either that I only had the clothes I was wearing with me. Consequently, I phoned Brian and got him to bring in some personal effects, fruit, chocolate bars and enough clothing to last for 5 days.
As a polite way of telling the staff to “piss off and leave me alone,” shortly after arriving I stuck a notice above my bed: ‘WHILE MY HUMAN RIGHTS ARE BEING COMPROMISED LIKE THIS, PLEASE DO NOT EXPECT ME TO PARTAKE IN ANY SO-CALLED “TREATMENT”.’ Of course, it didn’t work. At night-time, I was forced to take Risperidone, a mind-altering medication administered to treat schizophrenia. I’d read about its dangerous side effects from a website I subscribe to called Mercola.com, so utterly resented being forced to swallow this poison by a zealous nurse who stood over me like a guard in a Soviet camp for political dissidents.
Although I consoled myself with the thought that it would not be long before a well-informed psychiatrist who could talk English fluently would realize that I’d been misdiagnosed, it wasn’t to be.
The following day I felt lethargic because of the medication. It looked as if most of the patients in the ward were up to their eyeballs on it, as they moped around, gazing woodenly, the majority seeming unable to engage in articulate coherent conversation. As it seemed there was no one to have a conversation with, I had a look around for things to do – there was no garden, only a small grimy area outside for the smokers that was fenced off from the hospital grounds with prison bars. There was however Ping-Pong, reading Woman’s Day and New Idea, watching TV and talking to nursing staff, many of whom were empathetic and well-intentioned.
The consultant psychiatrist, Dr Carlos Zubaran, approached me cheerfully that day and said he wished to talk to me. As I presumed there would be no difficulty in correcting my misdiagnoses and as Dr Zubaran had the position of authority, I retrieved my evidence and strutted hopefully into the meeting room, thinking, ‘At last, he will realize I am not mad and I will be released!’ However, no sooner had I sat down than it became apparent that the self-assured Brazilian had accepted Dr Abass’s diagnoses without question and was eager to commence treating my purported cases of delusional disorder and depression. It was so awful for me at that moment, realizing I was imprisoned, and the head warden was going to play a part in this surreal ordeal.
In a beleaguered manner, as the Risperidone was making me drowsy, I tried to describe my frightening ordeal and show him my e-mails and my article, Why Does TVNZ Lie to Us About 9/11? but he wouldn’t even spare 10 seconds to lean over and look at them. He said he didn’t want to hear about them and told me I was “delusional” because I believed 9/11 was an inside job.
Charlie Sheen - Delusional Too?
I could tell it was a waste of time pointing out that I was far from alone in this belief and that a CNN poll conducted in March 2006 had shown that over 82 per cent supported Charlie Sheen, when he went public with his opinion that the official story of 9/11 was highly questionable to say the very least. If I had raised these types of matters, Dr Zubaran would have probably said it was further evidence of a delusional disorder.
CNN poll
As if he believed he was in possession of extra-sensory perception, he said, “I know what’s wrong with you” with a glimmering smile, and then to my alarm he began questioning me in the manner one would expect from a card-carrying member of a Freudian Institute for Clinical Practice. Although I was full of anguish and immense frustration, I think rage is not an exaggeration to describe my mood, I was forced to answer this totally irrelevant track of questioning for several minutes. “Did you use a condom with your last partner?” “When was your last sexual encounter?” “Who was your last partner?” “Who initiated the sex?” "Freud“ How often do you have sex?” and “Have you been questioned before like this about your sex life?” he inquired. When I could no longer stomach wasting time on this nonsense, I briefly tried to draw his attention to the issue of my misdiagnoses and present my evidence, but like Dr Abass, he wasn’t interested in engaging me in a reasonable interview. There was obviously no easy way out of my buttonholing, and I could see imploring for help was not going to get me anywhere either, so I ended the session after only five or so minutes by storming out of the comfortless room, miserable and livid with indignation.
In the ensuing days, I made a concerted effort to make the staff realize I was not delusional. I wrote in a note that I had a M.Sc. (Hons) and was highly regarded for my research as a journalist. ‘One can not do this, if one is “delusional,”’ it concluded. I also recommended that they look on the Internet to verify some of what I was saying, and I provided them with search terms for Google. Although Dr Abass said he had looked at these web pages and claimed to have understood the relevance of the information, to my amazement and mystification, he said he was increasing my dose of Risperidone to find a “therapeutic dosage.” When I protested, saying that I wasn’t delusional and I didn’t like the way the medication made me feel, he told me I had to take it and reiterated that he also wanted me to go on antidepressants.
On one occasion I had cried at the communal dining table, but this was a normal response to my current circumstances, not evidence of a major depressive illness. Nonetheless, he was convinced I was depressed, owing to his initial faulty assessment of me and so recommended that I take Aropax. I refused, telling him I had written an article for Investigate about it in 2004 and was aware that numerous studies had found that placebos were often just as effective as antidepressants, and there was significant evidence to show that Aropax was addictive also.
Following this gut-wrenching meeting, I forlornly walked into the lounge and spoke with a nurse about not wishing to take the Risperidone. Unsympathetically, she advised that if I refused to take it, I would be injected with it. An old schizophrenic woman who had refused hers because she thought she was pregnant, told me she was given a shot, so with tears in my eyes, I swallowed the larger dose, which did nothing other than make me feel like a zombie and so sluggish, I even struggled to maintain conversations. I was particularly worried about this latter side effect because I knew I had to be able to communicate fluently to be able to dig myself out of this nightmarish hole and make people realise I was grounded in reality.
Nurses asked me questions to establish my state of mind each day. Apart from a young one who childishly told me I was “stupid” to work in this dangerous area, most listened respectfully and attentively, and to my immense relief, a number told me they did not think I was delusional.
I had a lengthy conversation with a nurse on my fourth day, during which she said it was easy to tell who did not belong in the Ward and clearly I did not. The psychiatrists got so used to seeing “daises,” – when they saw something else, they sometimes couldn’t recognize it, she said.
Editor's note: The psychiatric profession is under the control of the Rockefeller Foundation which causes that profession to have an agenda. Extremely few psychiatrists are able to free themselves from it. Personally, I met one in NYC who was able to do so.
In spite of the growing awareness amongst the nursing staff that I was not mentally ill, the doctors opted to extend my stay beyond 5 days. I can not remember being given a reason why, but I assumed it was because they wished to continue my assessment.
Editor's note: It was to keep her censored. She had a home to which she could return, so it was only to keep her from disclosing the truth to others.
In my second session with Dr Zubaran, which was a week after the first abortive one, he began by telling me he had a Ph.D. in psychopharmacology and that I should consider going on an antidepressant such as Aropax. He said proudly that he had run a double-blind study that had shown how effective antidepressants could be and I should at least give them a go. I again refused and tried to explain that if he was so concerned about my mental health, he should discharge me immediately as I loathed being in hospital – I found it almost unbearable.
I again beckoned him to look at the threats I had received, but instead he sniped curtly, “They’re a defence mechanism.” I choked with emotion and got up and walked out – again after only a few minutes, absolutely livid with anger, as I could see no end to this trial, which judging by the look on his face, appeared to be nothing more than a minor part of a day's work.
When I spoke to one of my nurses about my misdiagnoses and my mounting sense of helplessness, he advised me to apply for a Section 16 hearing and put my case before a judge. He said it would be an informal meeting, where Dr Zubaran would state his case and I, mine. He gave me an application form to complete, which I did and he then faxed it to the District Inspector of Mental Health, Julie Young, who contacted me promptly to advise she would appoint a lawyer for the hearing, which would be on the following Wednesday, on the 14th of June.
As the days went by I persisted in complaining about the Risperidone, which one night had made me feel so breathless and headachy I had felt compelled to ask for a nurse’s help. Subsequently, I told the head nurse that I felt better without it and thankfully, she accepted my word and advised that I did not have to take it if I did not want to, implying that they would turn a blind eye. From then on, when nurses brought it to me at medication time, and when I refused it, they did not threaten to inject me with it. That was encouraging, so, too, the nurse who had said I clearly did not belong in there, took me on a home visit to collect more proof that I was not delusional. I got items for Dr Zubaran and the hearing, which included more of the e-mails that contained threats and documentaries on DVD which proved 9/11 was an inside job, such as 9/11: In Plane Site and 9/11: The Road to Tyranny.
Bin Laden's FBI Page - No Mention of 9/11
On the day of the hearing I felt reasonably confident good sense would prevail and end Dr Zubaran’s reign of error. My father, who is an anaesthetist and knew 9/11 was an inside job, came to give his support, as did one of the nurses and the lawyer, Bridget Westenra, who had been appointed by the District Inspector of Mental Health to help me. There were two psychiatrists present; Dr Zubaran, and a psychiatric registrar called Dr Vernon Reynolds, who had listened to me and informed my father and I before the meeting started that he believed I should be discharged immediately.
The hearing was in a small unpretentious room in which the seven of us sat, watched over by an old bearded guard. The judge, Tim Druce, who was an elderly man who wore a brown suit, began by asking Dr Zubaran what he thought my problems were and if they were serious enough to warrant depriving me of my rights by keeping me in hospital under a compulsory treatment order.
Dr Zubaran set the stage by saying he found my case “challenging” and believed my problems justified my being held for 14 days for further assessment. He told Mr Druce that I had a problem because I had had a hysterectomy that caused me to be depressed, I had unsafe sex and I drank too much – and concluded by saying that as I believed the US Administration had perpetrated 9/11, it was evident I was suffering from a delusional disorder.
Mr Druce, visibly deferent to Dr Zubaran, nodded his head in apparent agreement. The fact that I was a journalist and therefore might know something that they did not had not seemed to have occurred to either of them.
Lamentably, Dr Reynolds, rather than advising the judge he thought I should be released, displayed the backbone of a soufflé, presumably unwilling to challenge Dr Zubaran’s authority. Instead he wheedled in a flat, pessimistic voice that he was “ambivalent” about me being released. The nurse, however, said she had spoken to me and found me to be rational and in her opinion, I should be discharged.
Then the judge asked for my father’s opinion, noting he was a doctor and looking duly impressed. My father, Dr John Swinney, said he thought I should be released and went on to boldly divulge that he agreed with my political beliefs. He said 9/11 was an inside job and he had seen the evidence to prove it. His assertion rang out like a shot and everyone in the room tensed up. Mr Druce, looking awkward, grimaced and theatrically exclaimed: “Oh dear!,” and tellingly, didn’t question my father any further. It was as if his mind was coated with a varnish that waterproofed it from information that might complicate the hearing.
My father, who decades earlier had aided his brother out of an institution, as he had been wrongly diagnosed as schizophrenic, said to me after the hearing, that he felt as if he was putting himself “in danger” by exposing his political beliefs before the so-called mental health “experts.”
Mr Druce then turned to me and asked me what I thought, although it was apparent from the manner he was eyeing me mistrustfully, that he regarded me as too unbalanced to make rational statements. As I was anxious to be released, I battled on though and told him I had worked as a journalist for over 5 years and had a Master of Science, then pointed out that instead of talking about my political beliefs, what we should be discussing is whether or not I am suicidal – which I was not. Doctors Zubaran and Reynolds both acknowledged that they did not think I was, without hesitation. However, in spite of this and the provision in the Mental Health Act which states one can not be deemed to have a mental disorder because of one’s political beliefs, [4], Mr Druce, concurring with Dr Zubaran, concluded by saying he thought it best I remain hospitalized, as there was evidence I had a delusional disorder. I waited for my lawyer to challenge their decision, but she said nothing, and instead penned “delusional” in her file notes. (View page 1 of Tim Druce’s judgement, where he stated Dr Zubaran believed I had a delusional disorder related to my political beliefs, here:
http://i480.photobucket.com/albums/rr163/KiwiClare/SCAN0012.jpg ).
Following the hearing, a social worker friend, who works in Auckland, phoned me to find out how I was. I described what had happened and she was aghast, advising that my being held under a compulsory treatment order because of my political beliefs was in contravention of the Mental Health Act. She also mentioned that she knew of a patient with a number of mental health issues who had also voiced her opinion that 9/11 was an inside job, and she too had been judged negatively as a result. So I wasn’t alone.
To try and crack through this insanity and halt the spectacle of ignorance, I contacted Jon Eisen, the editor of Uncensored and asked him to write a letter to the staff of Ward 7. Mr Eisen, whose support and sympathy really helped to cheer me up that night, kindly wrote the following, which I printed several copies of during a brief home visit with a nurse, the next morning - which was day ten of my needless incarceration:
To whom it may concern
I am the editor of UNCENSORED magazine, a quarterly journal published in New Zealand and Australia. I have known Clare Swinney for about two years, during which time I have had the pleasure of working with her on several important projects.
I can say without hesitation that Clare is one of the best journalists in this country. Her work is very well known throughout New Zealand, and indeed internationally, as it has appeared in other journals beside UNCENSORED, including INVESTIGATE magazine, where she has broken many important stories. She is the kind of writer who any editor would be honoured to work with, as she is more than competent: she is thorough and her writing is, to put it mildly, simply brilliant.
There is no doubt that some of her work has come to the attention of people who do not wish her to cover some of the stories she has been writing about. Specifically I am referring to her most recent work in UNCENSORED which is both controversial and potentially dangerous for her. I have no doubt that when she says she has been threatened, she has indeed been. Clare is not by nature paranoid, nor is she delusional. She was, however, badly frightened, and given the dangerous nature of her work, there is no doubt in my mind that she probably had every right to be frightened. Journalists all over the world are being murdered for what they know. To be a journalist is to have one of the most dangerous jobs in the world right now.
In fact, prior to her being hospitalised, I was concerned for her safety myself, as she had copied me with some threatening e-mails that she had received.
I have suggested to Clare that she immediately desist from writing about those subjects that are likely to provoke further threats, and she has agreed to this.
I have spoken with her at length tonight and she seems to be coping very well considering the circumstances. I would be pleased to travel to Whangarei to meet with her doctors, should that be required.
I urge anyone who is currently in a position of responsibility for Clare’s safety and wellbeing, to treat her with the respect and dignity she deserves.
Sincerely yours,
Jonathan Eisen.
As soon as I returned from home, I handed a copy of this to Dr Zubaran and had one placed on my file for my nurses to read. To my enormous relief, as the day progressed, I could see from the nurses’ reactions towards me, that this letter was having the desired effect and I felt certain that it would not be long before I was discharged.
Thankfully, I had fruitful discussion with Heather Blackburn, the occupational therapist about my Catch-22 situation with Dr Zubaran that morning. She said she had seen the angry look on my face when I walked out of the meeting room after talking to him. I explained that he would not listen to me and being stuck in hospital and not being listened to was torturous. Consequently, she offered to organize a meeting with the Consumer Rights Advocate, Brian Vicars, which I very gratefully accepted.
In the morning of the following day, Friday the 16th, Dr Zubaran said he wanted to talk to me. I advised him about the meeting planned with the Consumer Rights Advocate; he said he knew about it. He suggested that we talk outside, so we went out to Hospital Road, and exchanged words a few meters from the hospital. Evidently, he still had not done any research related to 9/11 and reiterated that I was “delusional” because I believed it was an inside job. “This is evidence I am not delusional,” I said as I handed him an article I had in my pocket for him about what was then the biggest smoking gun of them all – Building 7’s collapse. Not to be outdone, he ignored the clipping’s contents and said I should go on antidepressants. When I yet again replied I would not, he said he would inject them intramuscularly. Suspecting he was hoping I would take the opportunity to do a runner before the meeting with the Advocate, and as I was offended by his condescension, I replied, “You don’t treat me like a human being,” and headed back to the hospital cloisters.
We met at the door and it was then, for the first time, that he asked to see the evidence of death threats I had, on this, my eleventh day of compulsory treatment.
At last! I eagerly gathered my bits of evidence together, and sat down at a table in the dining room with him.
Building 7 of the WTC Collapsing on 9/11
Ironically, he said he was in Manhattan on the day of 9/11 and saw the World Trade Center (WTC) buildings fall with his own eyes. Referring to photos in Uncensored of Building 7 plunging, I advised that engineers and physicists had established that the only way the buildings of the WTC could have fallen at a velocity close to the speed of gravity, as they did, would be if explosives had been used, which showed that the official story was a lie. I could see clearly he did not want to face this, but couldn’t elucidate if he was reluctant to do so because his need to cling to the official story was greater than his need for truth, or because he was so certain of his intellectual prowess, his mind had closed like a steel trap.
A nurse who looked annoyed with Dr Zubaran came to the table and said that there was a consensus amongst my nurses that I should be released, and in their opinion, he was holding me back wrongly. He acknowledged that he was indeed holding me back, but tried to justify doing so by stating that during the hearing, the judge had agreed with him. The nurse pointed out that the only reason the judge had agreed with him was because he regarded Dr Zubaran as the person with authority during the hearing. This nurse then got up and left the table and the Consumer Rights Advocate sat with us. We talked about the Emails I had received and I pointed out some of the threatening statements, which included, “I like to pull my guns out and shoot at moving targets,” “Decide in your heart of hearts that you are prepared to die to fight for justice if that’s what it takes –then you don’t have to be paranoid anymore,” and “You are right about the assassination part.” I told Dr Zubaran that I surmised that these Emails had come from the SIS and thankfully, the Advocate advised Dr Zubaran that the SIS did in fact exist. Their head office is in Wellington and they have branches in Auckland and Christchurch, and as I discovered subsequently from a young woman who answered the phone at the Auckland office, there is someone who attends to “media issues.”
Although, Dr Zubaran acknowledged I wasn’t suicidal, he persisted in returning to his view that I should remain in hospital because my belief that 9/11 was an inside job was clear evidence of “a delusional disorder.” Thankfully, however, after approximately 15 minutes of a discussion with the Advocate mediating, to my jubilation and relief, he agreed that I could go home that day, in spite of my political beliefs, on the condition that I saw a psychologist, as well as a community nurse at regular intervals. We shook hands and I gave him DVD copies of Confronting the Evidence, The Oil Factor and 9/11: The Road to Tyranny, and said I hoped once he had watched them, he would apologize to me. He shook his head and said he didn’t think that that would happen.
For the sake of future patients, I made a complaint to the Clinical Director of Mental Health at Whangarei Hospital and supplied psychiatric staff with new documentaries regarding the rise of fascism and government-sponsored terror, including America: Freedom to Fascism and Terrorstorm. Not surprisingly, Dr Zubaran failed to issue an apology, although he did succeed in writing in a letter he dated September 11, 2006, “Thanks for offering an alternative look to such a puzzling issue.”
My case has highlighted quite a number of issues, but perhaps most significantly, how dangerous it is to give psychiatrists the power to detain people on the basis of minimal and/or questionable evidence, without making their duty to abide by the provisions in the Mental Health Act clear to them. In particular, that people can not be regarded as mentally ill on the grounds of their political beliefs. Psychiatry was abused by the state in Soviet Russia to incarcerate dissenters – this has shown how easily it can happen in New Zealand, whether it is the result of ignorance or an inordinate unwillingness to face the truth.
Editor's note: It happens in the USA too.
1. ‘Why Does TVNZ Lie to us About 9/11?’, Uncensored Magazine, Issue 3, p. 25-29.
2. TVNZ vs Swinney, BSA Decision is at: http://www.bsa.govt.nz/decisions/2006/2006-011.htm
3. Vice President Dick Cheney stated: “We’ve never made the case, or argued the case that somehow Osama bin Laden was directly involved in 9/11. That evidence has never been forthcoming.”—WhiteHouse.gov, Interview by Tony Snow, March 29th, 2009. (Also, the FBI has admitted that they had no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11 in 2006).
4. For information on the Mental Health Act, refer the Ministry of Health website at <http://www.moh.govt.nz>. Note that on page 33 of this PDF document titled ‘Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1992′, linked to the Ministry of Health website, it states: “Are there some things that can never be called a mental disorder?
You cannot be considered to have a mental disorder just because of your:
• political, religious, or cultural beliefs;
• sexual preference (for example, being gay or straight);
• criminal behaviour;
• substance abuse (this includes drug or alcohol abuse);
• intellectual disability.”
Related:
As well as DVDs showing the evidence of 9/11, in 2008 I provided Northland Base Hospital with letters from 5 friends, including one from respected scientist, Dr Robert Anderson of Tauranga, who wrote that I had never shown any sign of being delusional and that 9/11 was indeed an inside job. The following was a letter written by an English friend, who has been researching the New World Order for some time:
TO WHOMEVER THIS MAY CONCERN
Dear Sir/Madam,
I have read the testament of Clare Swinney as to her appalling treatment by a Dr Carlos Zubaran during a period of unlawful detention at a mental health facility.
The scare which began this episode, being followed by a man dressed like a member of the security services and Email based death threats, is a story I have heard often from people within the anti-war and 9-11 Truth Movement. Sadly whether you choose to believe it or not, the security services in many nations (not just the USA) have a habit of targeting individuals with threats and intimidation and harassment in order to get them to cease their political activities.
Seemingly however, Dr Zubaran thought nothing of this and chose to presume that Clare Swinney was having some form of mental breakdown. He even cited her quite reasonable beliefs regarding the tragic events of 9-11-2001 as evidence that she was suffering from a “mental delusion.”
As you do not reside in a Nazi controlled nation, it is not a proper action by a Doctor, or indeed a judge (Judge Tim Druce in this case) to detain a person under the mental health act for their political belief.
You may or may not be aware that there is a very significant global movement which has seen enough evidence to conclude that 9-11 was not perpetrated solely (or even at all) by 19 Arab hijackers, and that the whole event was staged by persons within the US government and security services, perhaps with aid from Mossad, MI6, and others.
This attack was conducted for the purpose of starting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (we have proof they were both planned prior to 2001) and indeed to enable greater implementation of security laws to allow stricter controls on persons in society.
Yes we do have proof, and the most famous 9-11 film – Loose Change – has been watched at least 100 MILLION times online, with dozens of other such documentaries having been watched many millions more times on YouTube and Google.
There are politicians, scientists, structural engineers and many other relevant persons who state quite clearly that the towers of the WTC were demolished by controlled demolition and did not collapse due to plane impacts or fire (again we have proof).
You may or may not choose to believe such, which is irrelevant, what however should be clear to you is that this is not some wild fantastical fringe movement – a survey taken over a year ago found that over 80 per cent of New Yorkers feel the government is covering up what occurred on 9-11.
I have been lucky to meet Clare online as part of my own research, it is my aim to be an author, and can attest that she is clearly fully competent mentally. Further, she is a person who bases her viewpoints and online discussion contributions on facts that she can prove. Clare Swinney is most certainly a fact driven lady and not one who is prone to wild assertions or accusations.
I find her treatment by the Dr and Judge mentioned above to be a disgrace and am dismayed for your nation if this kind of behaviour by trusted members of society is the norm. She should in my view receive significant compensation as for a doctor to betray his Hippocratic oath in such a way is unforgivable. Further for a judge to make a mockery of his role as legal trustee is sickening and he should be reprimanded in the strongest possible terms.