Moscow discussed prospects of enforcing final recommendations of the UN Committee against Tortures

On January 15, the premises of the Federation for Peace and Accord have become the venue of the roundtable with participation of human rights defenders from such public organizations like the Committee for Civil Rights, "Social Partnership" Foundation, "Public Verdict," as well as representatives of state institutions for defence of human rights and specialists in the area of fighting tortures, cruel and humiliating treatment and punishment. The roundtable to the topic "Prospects of Enforcement by Russian of Recommendations of the UN Committee against Tortures adopted in Geneva in November 2006" was dedicated to issuance of final recommendations adopted by the UN Committee against Tortures. The recommendations in relation to Russia were made public last November in Geneva at the 37th Session of the UN Committee against Tortures. The basis for grafting the recommendations was consideration of the Fourth Periodic Report of the Russian Federation on enforcement of the UN Convention on Torture Prohibition.

In the words of Andrei Babushkin, Chairman of the Committee for Civil Rights, as of today, the recommendations of the UN Committee against Tortures have not found their practical implementation. Besides, the human rights activists think that the Committee has groundlessly ignored the following problems: rapid restriction of the rights of public associations, inadmissible formalism of prosecutor's allegations, frequent illegal placement and detainment of people at psychoneurologic boarding-schools and in colonies.

In the opinion of the experts present at the roundtable, the reason of this obscure picture in the sphere of violations of human rights in Russia lies in absence of openness and glasnost of the bodies of power and justice.