The Belgrade Centre for Human Rights would like to draw attention to the impermissible conduct of the officials who had ordered and supervised the police interventions in the Niš and Požarevac prisons last week. Although several days have passed since the Gendarmerie intervention, the Justice Ministry and prison directorate officials still keep silent about the circumstances in which the police acted, the degree of force used against the rioting prisoners, the number of injured inmates and the gravity of their injuries. The public has only had the chance to indirectly hear the accounts of the doctors who had seen to the injured inmates.The state is undoubtedly both entitled and obliged to employ legal and appropriate measures to ensure the proper functioning of the prisons. However, the conduct of the competent officials, including the Justice Minister, gives rise to serious concern. The Minister and his associates have for months now kept silent about the situation in the prisons. On several occasions, they have even denied that the inmates had staged riots, but, on the other hand, were quick to accuse the media of distressing the public with their reports.
Organisations monitoring the situation in penitentiaries and detention centres have, however, reported that the situation in Serbia’s prisons is alarming. Serbia is a signatory of a number of international treaties prohibiting torture. These treaties, notably the UN Convention against Torture and the (European) Convention for the Prevention of Torture, specifically oblige states to provide that the conditions in prisons and detention centres ensure the respect of the fundamental human rights of persons deprived of liberty. The Committee for the Prevention of Torture set up under the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture has in all its reports reiterated that the situation in Serbian prisons does not fulfil the mandatory standards.
The BCHR calls on the competent authorities to seriously address the problem. They cannot do that by drafting a law on pardons overnight or by sending the police in to quell the riots. The BCHR calls on the competent officials to inform the public of all the relevant details of last week’s interventions and of any excessive use of force. The BCHR will also ask the Committee for the Prevention of Torture to send its representatives to visit the Serbian prisons, assess the situation and issue fresh recommendations to the authorities. The BCHR stands ready to help the national authorities seriously address the substandard situation in prisons and improve the respect of the detainees’ human rights.
