Manfred Nowak, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Torture, said he was shocked after reading a report on Rotenberg by Mental Disability Rights International in 2010. (tinyurl.com/5da96ffr) The 67-page report was titled: “Torture not Treatment: Electric Shock and Long-Term Restraint in the United States on Children and Adults with Disabilities at the Judge Rotenberg Center; Urgent Appeal to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture.”

As the U.N. report shows, Rotenberg has used shock treatments known as GED or graduated electronic decelerator treatment for decades, and this is linked to the deaths of six children. One child, Andre McCollins, was shocked and tortured over 30 times, because he refused to take off his coat. His mother, Cheryl McCollins, has become a dedicated activist and organizer, working on the Oct. 5 protest.

There have been past protests at the JRC in Boston and in New York State where the Board of Education has been an enthusiastic conspirator complicit in shipping New York children with disabilities to be shocked, tortured and murdered. Most of the residents are actually from New York. A state law, named “Andre’s Law” after Andre McCollins, which would ban sending New Yorkers with disabilities to Rotenberg has been proposed in Albany at the New York legislature.

In 2020, the Food and Drug Administration banned GED devices, citing an “unreasonable and substantial risk of illness or injury” from them. The FDA said evidence pointed to both psychological and physical risks including burns, tissue damage, worsening underlying symptoms, depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. But the regulation was overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 2021, saying FDA officials had overstepped their authority.

Since that time, Congress clarified that the FDA does have the right to ban the devices, which prompted the agency to file another proposal. The issue of GEDs will face more litigation in the coming period.