Committee against Torture concludes sixty-third session

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Adopts Concluding Recommendations on Reports of Belarus, Czech Republic, Norway, Qatar, Senegal and Tajikistan

GENEVA (18 May 2018) - The Committee against Torture today concluded its sixty-third session after adopting its concluding observations and recommendations on the reports of Belarus, Czech Republic, Norway, Qatar, Senegal and Tajikistan on the implementation of the provisions of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

The Committee’s concluding observations and recommendations on the reviewed countries will be available on the session’s webpage. 

Summarizing the sixty-third session, Jens Modvig, Committee Chairperson, said that the Committee had adopted concluding observations on Belarus, Czech Republic, Norway, Qatar, Senegal and Tajikistan.  It had also adopted the list of issues prior to reporting on Andorra, Azerbaijan, Denmark, Jordan, Liechtenstein and Thailand.

Also during the session, the Committee had undertaken activities on follow-up under articles 19 and 22 of the Convention and in relation to reprisals, and examined relevant matters under article 20 of the Convention.  It had adopted decisions on 18 individual complaints and discontinued 9 other cases.  The Committee had decided to establish a working group to deal with those individual communications.  The Committee had also held its first-ever meeting with the United Nations Working Group on arbitrary detention; its traditional annual meeting with representatives of the Board of Trustees of the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture; an informal meeting with States parties with overdue initial reports; and a meeting with the Convention against Torture Initiative.  

The Committee also heard the Chairperson of the Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture present the Subcommittee’s eleventh annual report.  And it had adopted its annual report.

At the beginning of the session, the Committee heard solemn declarations from the following three new members of the Committee: Diego Rodríguez-Pinzón of Colombia, Bakhtiyar Tuzmukhamedov of Russia, and Honghong Zhang of China.  It had also elected a new Bureau, from among its members, as follows: Jens Modvig as Chairperson of the Committee; Felice Gaer, Essadia Belmir, and Claude Heller Rouassant as Vice-Chairpersons; and Sébastien Touzé as Committee Rapporteur.

The sixty-fourth session of the Committee against Torture will take place from 23 July to 10 August 2018 at the Palais Wilson in Geneva during which it will consider the reports of Chile, Mauritania and the Russian Federation, as well as the situation in Seychelles in the absence of a report.  The reports can be seen here.

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