Serbia investigates torture in Catholic Drug Rehab centre

international | crime and justice | other press Saturday May 23, 2009 16:11 by spare the rod spoil the childer

Branislav Peranovic is the "archpriest" (orthodox equivalent to dean's rank) who has run the "Novi Pazar" drug rehabilitation centre since 2003. Video footage shown on Thursday night on Serbian TV,& being widely picked up throughout European media, clearly shows inmates being beaten, a regular occurence which Peranovic justifies completely telling press that a "heavy hand" is needed and that anyone who has a "junkie in their home" would understand this. He further insists that parents of his "patients" approve the regime which is now to be investigated by the Serbian state who understandably consider the whole thing to be torture.

One former inmate describes how patients put their trousers bottoms in their socks before their beatings knowing that they will lose bowel control & in common parlance "shit themselves" but at least it won't go over the carpet or tiles.

At the Spiritual-Rehabilitation Center Crna Reka, led by Archpriest Branislav Peranović, drug addicts face beatings, weekly Vreme (Serbian news report program) says. Other than the fact that they are often assaulted with shovels, the question is whether the medicine, psychiatry or law have any purpose when the medicine dosages are determined by Peranović, "who studied agriculture". At the same time, “nurses are authorized beaters", while pit bull terriers and Dobermans guard the facilities.

The center is located near Novi Pazar in the south-west of the country and has been registered since 2005 t[hough open much longer.]

A man who went through “rehabilitation” there told the weekly that his parents took him to the center. "Along with pleasant conversation", he said, the center's representatives offered his parents a contract stating that all forms of treatment can be used on the addict, including light, "and somewhat more severe" beating. The contract covered six months of rehabilitation for the price of EUR 350 per month, he revealed. “In the yard, they gather the addicts in a circle to watch the ‘bad one’ get beaten. They hit him with clubs, shovels, fists, bars, belts, whatever they get their hands on,” the former patient stated.
According to him, Archpriest Peranović himself “knows how to hit, his hands are often bloody”. “When he hits, using his arms and legs, his robe flies all over the place. He practices martial arts,” the man told Vreme....."

http://www.b92.net/eng/news/society-article.php?yyyy=20...59305

"....The Health Ministry has sent its inspectors to the Spiritual-Rehabilitation Center Crna Reka, in southwestern Serbia. Minister Tomica Milosavljević's assistant, Ivana Mišić, told B92 that the goal of this will be to determine whether the center has engaged in unqualified medical practice. At the same time, Citizens Rights Ombudsman Saša Janković has filed criminal complaints against nine of the center's leader and employees, citing physical torture of patients. Belgrade's week Vreme reported about the controversial rehab on Friday, where according to witnesses drug addicts suffer severe beatings as part of their treatment. Vreme's Prvoslav Karanović, who broke the story, says he believes that his article and photographs published on the weekly's website have encouraged others to come forward and speak about their experiences at the center.

http://www.b92.net/eng/news/society-article.php?yyyy=20...59344

It has now emerged that parents who are too poor and feeble to kick the shite out of their junkie kids are offered a discount on the usual 350euros :-

"The treatment costs according to the financial status of an addict's family, "EUR 200, 350, 400".

200 euros is quite a bargain most people will agree.

last link to BBC with vid excerpt :-