[prisoner-rights] Optional Protocol to Torture Convention enters into force

A New and Significant Mechanism for Ensuring Compliance with Torture Ban
in the Fight against Terrorism

Vienna 21 June 2006. The International Helsinki Federation for Human
Rights (IHF), which represents 45 national Helsinki Committees and
Cooperating Organizations in Europe, Central Asia and North America,
welcomes the entry into force tomorrow of the Optional Protocol to the UN
Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment
or Punishment.

“This protocol, which establishes a novel system of detention monitoring
at the international level, is of heightened relevance in the context of
the post-September 11 fight against terrorism,” says Aaron Rhodes, IHF
Executive Director. He continues: “It is particularly troubling that
well-established democracies have showed readiness to circumvent the
absolute prohibition against torture and ill-treatment in their efforts to
combat terrorism, e.g. by allowing abusive interrogation techniques,
making use of evidence believed to have been obtained under torture and
sending terrorist suspects to countries with notorious records of torture.
In this way they have not only violated their international obligations
but also set a problematic precedent for less democratic states.”

Following many years of lobbying by civil society, the optional protocol
was adopted by the UN General Assembly and opened for ratification in
December 2002. It enters into force on 22 June 2006, thirty days after
receiving its twentieth ratification. The protocol provides for
complementary visits to places of detention by international and national
monitoring bodies, which will work closely together. These bodies will
have the right to visit all places where people deprived of their liberty
are being held and conduct private interviews with detainees. Experience
has shown that regular and unannounced visits to places of detention by
independent bodies are of key importance for the effective prevention of
torture and ill-treatment.

The IHF calls on all states to demonstrate their commitment to eradicating
torture and ill-treatment by promptly signing and ratifying the optional
protocol to the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment or Punishment if they have not yet done so.

 
For more information:
Aaron Rhodes, IHF Executive Director, +43-1-408 88 22 or +43-676-635 66 12
Henrietta Schroeder, IHF Press Officer, +43-1-408 88 22 41 or
+43-676- 725 48 29