My apologies for an English version here. I will try to get a Japanese version soon. Thank you again for your support for our petition, “End long-term restraint in psychiatric care (精神科医療における身体拘束の状況の改善を求める)” There have been some positive and some more concerning developments: Positive: 1. We have been contacted by the group “Japan National Group of Mentally Disabled People“ (JNGMDP). It is a nationwide network of persons with psychosocial disability established in 1974. We are working with them on a submission to the United Nations condemning the poor state of Japan’s treatment of mental health patients. It will be presented as a Parallel report for the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), which involves a review of the human rights records of all UN Member States, and is handled under the auspices of the Human Rights Council. Japan will be reviewed on 14 November this year. 2. The NHK TV special that was mentioned in the last update went well. 3. Yomiuri Shinbun continues to publish articles about mental health. The last one was last Sunday (17 Sept.). It is not online though. 4. Upcoming events: October 1-7 is Mental Health Awareness Week in the U.S. October 9-17 is Mental Health Awareness Week in New Zealand and October 10 is World Mental Health Day. 5. In response to an invitation from a psychiatric hospital, Professor Hasegawa visited the hospital to discuss about the problems of long-term restraints. 6. We have heard that many psychiatrists are now discussing the problem of restraints on psychiatric patients as well as dementia patients. Concerning: 1. We have been contacted by families of mental health patients who are still being held in restraints and not allowed to see their relatives. The hospitals have been very reluctant to allow our requests for interviews, although one eventually did give in and changed their treatment of the one patient of concern. 2. We have heard of some journalists who are being pressured to stop writing articles about mental health in Japan. So, although there has been some positive change, the petition is still important and we hope you will continue to let people know about it. Petition urls: English version: https://goo.gl/UBSyzd Japanese version: https://goo.gl/CVtrTF