Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI) has filed a report and urgent appeal with

the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture alleging that the Judge
Rotenberg Center for the disabled, located in Massachusetts,
violates the UN Convention against Torture.

The rights group submitted their report this week, 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," after an
in-depth investigation revealed use of restraint boards, isolation, food
deprivation and electric shocks in efforts to control the behaviors of
its disabled and emotionally troubled students.

Findings in the MDRI report include the center's practice of subjecting children to
electric shocks on the legs, arms, soles of feet and torso -- in many
cases for years -- as well as some for more than a decade. Electronic
shocks are administered by remote-controlled packs attached to a child's
back called a Graduated Electronic Decelerators (GEI).

The disabilities group notes that stun guns typically deliver three to four milliamps per shock. GEI packs, meanwhile, shock students with 45
milliamps -- more than ten times the amperage of a typical stun gun.

A former employee of the center told an investigator, "When you start working there, they show you this video which says the shock is 'like a
bee sting' and that it does not really hurt the kids. One kid, you could
smell the flesh burning, he had so many shocks. These kids are under
constant fear, 24/7. They sleep with them on, eat with them on. It made
me sick and I could not sleep. I prayed to God someone would help these
kids."

Noting that it believes United States law fails to provide needed protections to children and adults with disabilities, MDRI calls
for the immediate end to the use of electric shock and long-term
restraints as a form of behavior modification or treatment and a ban on
the infliction of severe pain for so-called therapeutic purposes.

"Torture as treatment should be banned and prosecuted under criminal law," the
report states.

The U.S. Department of Justice opened a "routine investigation" of
the center in February of this year in response to a September 2009
letter signed by 31 disability organizations claiming that the center
violated the Americans
with Disabilities Act.

Judge Rotenberg CEO and founder Dr. Matthew L. Israel began his first program in California back in
1977. In 1981, a 14-year old boy died face down, tied to his bed, while
living in the California center. Dr. Israel was not held responsible
for the death. After an investigation by the State of California, Israel
relocated to Rhode Island, and then to Massachusetts, where his
facility still operates today.