Human
rights news: October 2004
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15 October 2004 |
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International Helsinki Federation Press ReleasePublication of NGO Report 'Places of Detention in the Russian Federation' |
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Vienna, Moscow, Sofia, 14 October 2004 - On 19 and 20 February 2004 a delegation of representatives from several non-governmental human rights organizations conducted an international mission of monitoring places of detention in the Russian Federation. The delegation represented the following organizations: Association for the Prevention of Torture (APT), Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in the Republic of Macedonia, Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights in Poland, Human Rights Watch, Hungarian Helsinki Committee, International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF), and the Moscow Helsinki Group. The delegation visited five institutions under the authority of the Ministry of Justice (four pre-trial isolators and one juvenile colony) in the Moscow region and two psychiatric hospitals under the authority of the Ministry of Health. The report drawn up after the visits outlines the delegation's findings and comes up with a number of recommendations. The delegation observed a variety of conditions of detention in the Ministry of Justice facilities ranging from satisfactory to inhuman. It commended the efforts of the Moscow Penitentiary Department to improve the conditions of detention in the pre-trial detention facilities for juveniles and women. These efforts resulted in a significant improvement of the conditions in these facilities over the past three years. At the same time the delegation found that Russian law and policy need further substantial reforms in order to reach the level of full compliance with international standards for treatment of prisoners. More specifically, the Russian law and policy still do not allow for diversified forms of custody. The prevailing dormitory type of custody and the absence of individual and small-group cells limit prisoners' choices after the placement. Medical services in the places of detention are not integrated with the national health care system. Doctors and other medical staff are not given independent status, which does not allow them to be guided only by medical consideration when taking clinical decisions. The procedure for imposition of disciplinary measures allows for arbitrary exercise of disciplinary powers by the prison staff. Although the Moscow Penitentiary Department managed to reduce overcrowding in a number of pre-trial isolators, this problem continued to exist in the Investigation Isolator No.2, where around 1,000 prisoners had to share a bed. A serious concern for the delegation was the lack of sufficient activities, especially for some categories of prisoners in the pre-trial isolators. The regime imposed on the life prisoners in the Investigation Isolator No.2 in Moscow was extremely restrictive with no activities appropriate for their age and education that can compensate their prolonged isolation. Prisoners were deprived of the possibility to rest during the day as their mattresses were removed from the cells. In general, the conditions of detention of the prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment amounted to inhuman treatment. The delegation mentioned with satisfaction the efforts of the staff in the Iksha juvenile colony to involve their inmates into appropriate occupational and rehabilitation activities. At the same time, it observed with concern a number of practices that are not in line with international standards. These include the use of solitary confinement for the punishment of juveniles, bad material conditions and overcrowding in the quarantine and in the special regime units and bad working conditions. The delegation recommended that the disciplinary cells in the Moscow Investigation Isolator No.2 be withdrawn from service as placement there amounts to inhuman punishment. It also recommended the withdrawal from service of the small cages for temporary placement of prisoners along the corridors and in the waiting areas of the investigation isolators. The two psychiatric hospitals visited by the delegation, the Moscow Psychiatric Hospital No.1 and the Litvinov Psychiatric Hospital in Tver, represented the top level of the Russian mental health care institutions. Nevertheless, there, too, the delegation observed some inconsistencies with the international human rights standards. The latter concerned for the most part the procedure for the civil and the criminal commitment to a psychiatric clinic. The Russian civil commitment law and practice do not guarantee a possibility for the patient to appear before a court under a specific procedure for the determination of the legality of his/her detention shortly after the initial placement. They also do not guarantee the participation of a lawyer already from the moment of detention and obligatory representation of the patient during the entire proceedings, including the appeals. The delegation observed documents from commitments that were conducted in violation of the due process standards. The commitment of people under guardianship to a psychiatric institution does not take place through court in accordance with the due process standards. The law and the practice of commitment in the Russian Federation do not envisage a procedure to seek an informed consent for treatment also from the forensic/compulsory and from the involuntary patients, or a procedure to evaluate the capacity of the patient to give an informed consent for treatment. Advanced directives are not incorporated in the law, as legitimate forms of expression of a specific will. The delegation found that the treatment methods in some wards were restricted to pharmacotherapy and that there were not enough activities. On several occasions it found overcrowded and unhygienic conditions. Seclusion and restraint of patients were not registered in special registers and patients were used to restrain other patients. Background: Project "Preventing Torture in the Closed Institutions of Central and Eastern Europe", funded by the European Commission, Project Period: 15 April 2003 - 14 April 2006. The countries covered by this project, with the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee being the leading partner, are Bulgaria, Macedonia, Hungary, Poland, the Russian Federation, and Serbia and Montenegro. The project is directed at preventing torture and ill-treatment in prisons, pre-trial detention facilities, juvenile correction centres and psychiatric establishments. The methods applied during the three year project are the following: systematic monitoring and research of torture/ill-treatment practices, training of state officials on international standards, training of target groups on their rights, training of NGO activists on monitoring techniques. Strategic litigation before domestic and international courts will be a further step within the project. These activities will raise the public's awareness to the problems of torture and ill-treatment through publications, special reports and shadow NGO reports to international and inter-governmental organisations. The project also relies on domestic and international lobbying and advocacy at international fora for the achievement of its goals. The project encourages systematic visits by NGO's as a preventive tool against torture and ill-treatment, and wants to stimulate governments to permit NGO visits to closed institutions. A further aim is to train NGO activists in monitoring closed institutions, to then exchange expertise between them on this topic from an European perspective. For further information: |