Overview of main observations of five years fact-finding and research 2010, para. 48
Paragraph- Paragraph text
- The Special Rapporteur is unable to think of any other mechanism where the gap between the protection required by international instruments and the actual situation is as glaring. One of the most vivid, indicative and telling situations he encountered during one of his missions was where he found more than 70 detainees crammed into a small, badly lit and filthy cell, who had been there up to more than two years, and who had not once left the cell since their arrival. They were held incommunicado, some secretly, and many reported how they were most seriously tortured by the police during arrest and interrogation. None of them had received any medical treatment. This was just a few metres behind a human rights desk, which had been set up to receive complaints by detainees. Several officers were on duty at the desk, their workplace was adorned with a complaints box and posters on the rights of detainees. They had never received a single complaint from a detainee. These human rights desks are only one example of numerous utterly ineffective complaints mechanisms. Whenever the Special Rapporteur receives information from officials that torture is not an issue in their country because no complaint has ever been filed, that has, in practice, been a clear signal that the opposite is the case - that torture is routine and that detainees are too afraid or simply unable to complain.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Means of adoption
- N.A.
- Topic(s)
- Civil & Political Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Paragraph type
- Other
- Paragraph number
- 48
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