Special UN Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Manfred Nowak has warned that countries such as Sri Lanka, Paraguay, Nigeria and Togo continued to hold “appalling” conditions in which many prisoners were forced to live in. Mr. Nowak, making his remarks during a press conference held at the UN Headquarters in New York over the weekend also said that the detainees, in these countries, lived in overcrowded conditions with lack of access to hygiene, food, healthcare – or sometimes even light – which amounted to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
He was also concerned that cases of pretrial detention in these countries often lasted for years due to poorly functioning justice systems, or because of corruption, lack of resources and the practice of judges relying heavily on the extraction of confessions, which put pressure on the police to extract those confessions by means of torture.
Amongst the detainees, those particularly vulnerable were children, gays and lesbians, transsexuals and those with disabilities, who Mr. Nowak called "the most forgotten ones".
“They (the detainees) were often found in solitary confinement, or in pre-detention facilities without any kind of medical attention or psychiatric care. Minors were also often found under those circumstances,” he said.(JN)