The Independent Psychiatric Association of Russia (IPA) () is the sole Russian non-governmental professional organization that makes non-forensic psychiatric expert examination at the request of citizens whose rights have been violated with the use of psychiatry. The IPA is not a state institution but a public organization, and its medical reports have not a legal but an ethical significance. There is nowhere to refute one's misdiagnosis in Russia. In recent years, the IPA forces restrictions on patients’ rights and transinstitutionalization of those with mental illness. History The IPA was established in Moscow in March 1989 and became the first psychiatric association in the USSR which was not controlled by the State. The IPA was created as an association publicly opposing itself to official Soviet psychiatry and its offspring, the All-Union Society of Neuropathologists and Psychiatrists, which was completely under the control of the Soviet government and implemented its political principles. The members of the initiative group on establishing the IPA were Alexandr Podrabinek and psychologist Victor Lanovoi who had developed the plan to establish the IPA and had been its first president before he emigrated to Israel. The IPA has been the full member of the World Psychiatric Association since October 17, 1989. In 1992, the IPA joined the Russian Human Rights House Network, a union of 10 well-known human rights organizations. The IPA played a significant part in the demolition of punitive psychiatry. The IPA appears to make very active efforts to communicate their views on the previous and present abuses of psychiatry in Russia to psychiatry in the West. Structure In 2010, the IPA has about 600 members in 54 regions of Russia. Most members of the IPA are the members of the Russian Society of Psychiatrists. The charter of the IPA runs as follows: “Independent means self-supporting, no included in the composition and departmental subordination of state medical institutions and other administrative bodies.” The IPA cooperates with the Moscow Helsinki Group and has the community liaison office and examination commission where one can receive free legal advice and services. The Society of Clinical Psychotherapists (M.Burno) was created under the auspices of IPA in 1995. Later on Moscow Group for Philosophy and Psychiatry (Elena B. Bezzubova) was organized and began to function together with psychotherapeutic theatre and regular meetings grouped under the title of “Psychiatry and Problems of Spiritual Life” (B.Voskresensky and Z.Krakhmalnikova). IPA takes an active part