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UN torture prevention body to visit Croatia

30 June 2023

GENEVA (30 June) – The UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT) will make its first visit to Croatia from 2 to 8 July to assess the treatment of people deprived of their liberty and the safeguards in place to protect them from torture and ill-treatment.

The places to be visited by the SPT delegation include prisons, police stations and other facilities where people are deprived of liberty. The delegation will also meet with government officials and the national monitoring body, officially known as the National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) of Croatia.

“In addition to visiting detention facilities and interviewing those detained as well as staff and management, we will take this opportunity to share our experience with the NPM in Croatia, with a view to strengthening their important work,” said Marie Brasholt, head of the SPT delegation. “A comprehensive national torture prevention system requires regular visits by an independent and well-resourced detention monitoring body, therefore we will also be looking at the set-up and functioning of the NPM,” she added.

The SPT is mandated to visit all States that are parties to the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT). At the end of the visit, the SPT will present its confidential preliminary observations to the Government of Croatia.

The SPT delegation will be composed of Marie Brasholt, Head of Delegation (Denmark), Uju Agomoh (Nigeria), Satyabhooshun Gupt Domah (Mauritius), Daniel Fink (Switzerland), and Zdenka Perović (Montenegro). The delegation will be accompanied by two human rights officers from the SPT Secretariat.

For media inquiries or for more information, please contact:

In Croatia - Armen Avetisyan at armen.avetisyan@un.org

In Geneva - Vivian Kwok at vivian.kwok@un.org

Background:
The Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture monitors States parties’ adherence to the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, which to date has been ratified by 92 countries. The Subcommittee is made up of 25 members who are independent human rights experts drawn from around the world, who serve in their personal capacity and not as representatives of States parties.

The Subcommittee has the mandate to visit States that have ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, during the course of which it may visit any place where persons may be deprived of their liberty and assist those States in preventing torture and ill-treatment. The Subcommittee communicates its observations and recommendations to States through confidential reports, which it encourages countries to make public.

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