With regard to the UN International Day In Support of Victims of Torture, the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) would like to notify the public that the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture came into force on 22 June 2006. Serbia, unfortunately, is not one of the 20 states that have ratified the Optional Protocol.The Protocol envisages the setting up of a Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture, charged with performing ad hoc inspections and supervisions of prisons and all other detention units in Member States. It also binds the states to create similar national preventive institutions. The Protocol is of great importance in preventing human rights violations in prisons; a similar mechanism has already been set up under the auspices of the Council of Europe and the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture.
The BCHR would like to recall that all states are obliged to prevent any violence, torture and inhuman and humiliating treatment of inmates both by public authorities and private individuals and other prisoners, like the recent unrest in the Niš Prison. The BCHR therefore calls on the Serbian Assembly to ratify the Optional Protocol as soon as possible.
