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UN torture prevention body to revisit Honduras

09 April 2024

GENEVA (9 April 2024) – The UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT) will visit Honduras for the third time from 14 to 20 April to evaluate the treatment of people detained in various facilities and assess the protection measures against torture and ill-treatment.

“We look forward to the opportunity to deepen our constructive and cooperative dialogue with the Honduran authorities and its independent monitory body, the national preventive mechanism (NPM), in order to evaluate the implementation of the recommendations made during our 2012 visit and assess the main challenges faced by the country related to torture prevention and its criminal justice system,” stated Marco Feoli Villalobos, head of the SPT delegation.

“This visit takes place within the broader context of the deepening crisis of violence across Latin America and the challenges that States encounter to ensure both individual rights and freedoms and collective security. As such, the prevention of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in places of deprivation of liberty is of paramount importance,” he added.

Honduras ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT) in 2006, and its NPM has been operational since 2010.

Under its mandate, the SPT is authorised to conduct unannounced visits to all locations where individuals are deprived of liberty within the territory of a State party. The SPT delegation will hold meetings with government authorities, representatives of civil society, UN agencies, and the NPM. They will also undertake a joint visit to places of deprivation of liberty alongside the NPM.

The delegation will then produce a report for the State party, which will remain confidential unless and until the Honduran authorities decide to make it public, as was the case with the first report made by the SPT in 2009. The SPT’s second report to the Honduran authorities remains confidential.

The SPT delegation is comprised of: Marco Feoli, head of the delegation (Costa Rica), Massimiliano Bagaglini (Italy), Carmen Comas Mata Mira (Spain), and Maria Luisa Romero (Panama), along with two members of the SPT secretariat and two security officials.

 

For media inquiries or more information, please contact
In Honduras: Virginia Vasiliou Thompson at virginia.thompson@un.org 
In Geneva: Vivian Kwok at vivian.kwok@un.org 
UN Human Rights Office Media Section at ohchr-media@un.org

Background
To date, the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture has been ratified by 93 states. States are under the obligation to allow the SPT unannounced and unhindered visits to all places where persons are deprived of their liberty. States Parties should also establish a national preventive mechanism, which should conduct regular visits to places throughout the country where people are deprived of liberty.

The mandate of the SPT is to prevent torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of persons deprived of their liberty, through visits and recommendations to States parties to the Optional Protocol. The SPT communicates its recommendations and observations to States by means of a confidential report and, where necessary, to national preventive mechanisms. However, States parties are encouraged to request that the SPT publish the reports.

The SPT is composed of 25 independent and impartial 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.

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