UN torture prevention body to visit Bulgaria, Cabo Verde, Ghana and the United Kingdom in 2019

GENEVA (December 5, 2018) — In the coming months, the UN’s Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture will visit Bulgaria, Cabo Verde, Ghana and the United Kingdom, in addition to the already announced visits to Costa Rica, Senegal and Switzerland. The visits were decided during the Subcommittee’s confidential session held in Geneva in November.

To date, the SPT has completed more than 65 visits and in 2018 visited Belize, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Poland, Portugal and Uruguay. Confidential reports on the visits to Uruguay and Portugal have been sent to the States authorities as well as to the National Preventive Mechanism of these countries.
The Subcommittee has a mandate to visit States which have ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture, and assist those States in preventing torture and other forms of ill-treatment. The Subcommittee communicates its observations and recommendations to States through a confidential report, which it encourages countries to make public.

ENDS 

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 88 countries. The Committee 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 SPT has a mandate to undertake visits to States parties, during the course of which it may visit any place where persons may be deprived of their liberty. Learn more with our videos on the Treaty Body system and on the Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture!

For further inquiries please contact Joao Nataf, SPT Secretary + 41 (0) 22 917 9102/jnataf@ohchr.org. For media inquiries, please contact Julia Grønnevet at +41 (0) 22 917 9310/jgronnevet@ohchr.org.

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