In the US, systems engineer and hacktivist Marty Gottesfeld is serving a 10-year prison sentence for trying to bring attention to the story of Justina Pelletier, a teenage girl who was forcibly held in Boston Children's Hospital and was abused by medical staff.

For several months, the girl's parents tried to get their daughter back home through the courts. 

Justina's health problems began at the age of 14 - the girl suffered from severe abdominal pain and digestive problems. After visiting several doctors, she was diagnosed with a rare mitochondrial disease that can lead to muscle weakness and neurological problems. Over the course of several months, Justina's condition worsened - she began to have difficulty with the pronunciation of words and problems with the musculoskeletal system. After that, in 2013, her parents turned to specialists at Boston Hospital for help. 

However, hospital doctors said Justina was suffering from mental illness and her symptoms were "psychosomatic."

They canceled the treatment prescribed by the doctors, and when the parents tried to take the girl home, they were stopped by the institution's security.

The hospital took the girl "under guardianship", and also accused her parents of "medical abuse" of the child.

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Justina was transferred to the children's psychiatric ward of the hospital, where her condition worsened.

According to the girl's relatives, she was actually locked in a medical facility, where she did not receive the necessary medical care: "It was tantamount to torture."

“From a healthy girl, as far as possible, she was turned into a wheelchair, practically paralyzed below her hips. Now, 13 months later, they (the hospital -

RT

), in fact, admit that they were wrong. For 13 months she was in great pain without interruption, ”Justina's father said in a 2014 television interview.

The girl's parents filed a lawsuit against the hospital, but the medical institution said that it was her family who posed the danger to the teenager's health. In addition, the court banned Justine and her parents from talking to the media. However, some time later, the Boston Globe presented material stating that Justina Pelletier was not the first child to be in a similar situation - over the previous 18 months, the hospital took at least five other children from their parents, also accusing the latter of “medical violence against children ”.

The story caught the attention of American computer security expert Marty Gottesfeld.

To draw attention to the details of Justina's story and her illegal imprisonment in a medical facility, Gottesfeld launched a cyberattack on the hospital's network.

Some time after the story received widespread media coverage, the court agreed to return Justin Pelletier home, where she again began to receive the treatment she needed. 

However, after the girl's release, Gottesfeld was arrested and prosecuted for the break-in.

The man was charged with, inter alia, conspiracy to damage secure computers.

The court sentenced him to 10 years in prison.

“What is my crime? I am serving a ten-year sentence because I found out that an innocent 15-year-old girl named Justina Pelletier with learning difficulties was tortured in America's leading pediatric clinic, and that the authorities are too corrupt to stop it. So, without harming anyone, I protected her life in a way that few could. For this, in 2018, I was arrested and subjected to criminal prosecution, ”said the activist.

Gottesfeld expressed the opinion that the charges against him were "100% political" and represented an attempt to hide the history of child abuse.

Gottesfeld's wife also noted that after the release of Justina, no investigation was carried out in relation to the hospital: "Instead, they punish people who are trying to expose this and protect children."

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“I hardly should have been charged at all.

To deprive the family of the opportunity to represent the interests of the child, misleading statements were used.

The family was given an unconstitutional ban on the disclosure of information, banned from communicating with the press - in violation of the beloved First Amendment to the US Constitution.

A blatant violation of the Constitution, ”the activist noted.

While in custody, the man also wrote an article published on the English-language website RT, in which he spoke, in particular, about the intolerable conditions in prison and abuses in the Ministry of Justice. 

“My (medium security) cell is in the old Terre Haute prison on death row.

This building housed Timothy McVeigh, who caused the Oklahoma City bombing before he was lethally injected in 2001.

Then the executions were suspended, the authorities moved the death row to another complex, on the contrary, outside the walls of a penitentiary with a strict regime, ”he said.

Later, Gottesfeld's wife said that after the article was published, lawyers were no longer allowed to visit her husband.

It is noteworthy that neither the US Department of Justice nor international human rights organizations have spoken about the arrest of Marty Gottesfeld. 

In particular, the non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch, which investigates human rights violations, responded to a corresponding request from RT that "due to lack of resources, they cannot answer this question."