for its thousands of members to express their views and experiences, to form support networks and to organize activist campaigns in support of human rights in psychiatry. The coalition regards the psychiatric practices of 'unscientific labeling, forced drugging, solitary confinement, restraints, involuntary commitment, electroshock' as human rights violations. In 2003, eight Mindfreedom members, led by then-executive director David Oaks, went on a hunger strike to publicize a series of "challenges" they had put forth to the American Psychiatric Association (APA), the US Surgeon General and the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). The eight MFI members challenged the APA, US Surgeon General and NAMI to present MFI with "unambiguous proof that mental illness is brain disorder." By sustaining the hunger-strike for more than one month, MFI forced the APA and NAMI to enter into a debate with them on this and other issues. MindFreedom describes their Shield Program as "an all for one and one for all" network of members. When a registered member is receiving (or is being considered for) involuntary psychiatric treatment, an alert is sent to the MindFreedom Solidarity Network on that person's behalf. Members of the network are then expected to participate in organized, constructive, nonviolent actions—e.g., political action, publicity and media alerts, passive resistance, etc.—to stop or prevent the forced treatment. See also Anti-psychiatry Biopsychiatry controversy Clifford Whittingham Beers Electroconvulsive therapy Elizabeth Packard Icarus Project Involuntary commitment Involuntary treatment John Hunt Judi Chamberlin Kate Millett Leonard Roy Frank Linda Andre List of psychiatric survivor related topics Lyn Duff Mad Pride Mentalism (discrimination) National Empowerment Center Psychiatric survivors movement Recovery model Self-help groups for mental health Services for mental disorders Ted Chabasinski Peter Lehmann World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry References External links MindFreedom.org - MindFreedom International homepage Literature Oaks, David W. (2007). ‘MindFreedom International: Activism for Human Rights as the Basis for a Nonviolent Revolution in the Mental Health System’. In Peter Stastny & Peter Lehmann (Eds.), Alternatives Beyond Psychiatry (pp. 328–336). Berlin / Eugene / Shrewsbury: Peter Lehmann Publishing. (UK), (USA). E-Book in 2018. Oaks, David W. (2007). ‘MindFreedom International – Engagement für Menschenrechte als Grundlage einer gewaltfreien Revolution im psychosozialen System’. In: Peter Lehmann & Peter Stastny (Hg.), Statt Psychiatrie 2 (S. 344-352). Berlin / Eugene / Shrewsbury: Antipsychiatrieverlag. . E-Book in 2018. Taylor, Dan (2007). ‘MindFreedom Ghana: Fighting for Basic Human Conditions of Psychiatric Patients’. In Peter Stastny & Peter