Highlighting the importance of consistent treatment of persons deprived of their liberty, Mykola Gnatovsky, President of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) stated: “There are specific and intense challenges for staff working in various places of deprivation of liberty, including police detention facilities, penitentiary institutions, immigration detention centres, psychiatric hospitals and social care homes, as well as in various newly-established facilities/zones where persons are placed in quarantine. Whilst acknowledging the clear imperative to take firm action to combat COVID-19, the CPT must remind all actors of the absolute nature of the prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment. Protective measures must never result in inhuman or degrading treatment of persons deprived of their liberty.”
To that end the Statement of principles relating to the treatment of persons deprived of their liberty in the context of Covid-19 pandemic, has been published by the CPT.
The action on Strengthening human rights treatment of detained persons based on European standards and best practices in Bosnia and Herzegovina has promptly reacted to the new circumstances in order to support the authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina in better protection of the rights of persons deprived of liberty.
With the support of this action, the Statement of principles relating to the treatment of persons deprived of their liberty in the context of Covid-19 pandemic, published by the CPT, were translated to Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian and distributed to local authorities and practitioners in Bosnia and Herzegovina only a couple of days after those were published by the CPT's Secretariat (20 March).
The translation of the document to local languages has been shared with senior officials in all three Ministries of Justice in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Assistant Ministers and prison inspectors) and with all 14 prison governors (and/or senior prison managers in BiH).
In addition, it has also been distributed to all 10 police agencies in Bosnia and Herzegovina through the network of trainers accredited under this Horizontal Facility action to deliver per training in their agencies. The trainers' primary expertise is in development and delivery of human rights modules in peer training but one of their tasks is also to disseminate the latest standards, such as CPT's Statement is.
The police agencies reached by this initiative are: Federal Police Administration, Ministry of Justice of Republic Srpska, State Investigation and Protection Agency, Police of Brcko District of BiH, Border Police of BiH, Court Police of Federation of BiH, Court Police of Republika Srpska, Court Police of BiH, Court Police of Brcko District and Service for Foreigner Affairs.
This activity is organised within the joint EU/Council of Europe programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey II” and its action "’Strengthening human rights treatment of detained persons based on European standards and best practices in Bosnia and Herzegovina".
Statement of principles relating to the treatment of persons deprived of their liberty
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