28 March 2022
Nataša Tanjević, the Deputy Protector of Citizens for the rights of persons deprived of their liberty, presented the activities of the National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) in the last two years and highlighted the most important findings and recommendations of the NPM in the area of torture prevention and other forms of abuse at an online conference "Fight against Torture and Other Forms of Abuse in Serbia", held on 25 March 2022, organized by the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights.
The topic of the conference was the assessment of the situation in Serbia in the area of the prohibition of torture and other forms of abuse, especially from the point of view of the findings and recommendations addressed to Serbia in the latest reports of international bodies – the Committee against Torture of the United Nations, the Special Rapporteur on Torture and the European Committee of the Council of Europe for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
Tanjević, PhD, also indicated that the Concluding Observations of the UN Committee against Torture cover the period 2015-2019, and that in the meantime, numerous activities have been undertaken to improve the situation in the area, such as improving material conditions in detention facilities, institutions for the enforcement of penal sanctions, visited psychiatric institutions and social welfare homes, the recording of injuries by doctors in institutions, developing the capacities of the institution’s officials for the development and implementation of new rehabilitation programs, improving the records kept by police stations for detained persons, etc. She also stated that the NPM, as in the previous years, and on the occasion of the last report of the CPT, will continue to conduct visits to the institutions in order to monitor the implementation of the recommendations and will thus strive to contribute to the improvement of the situation in that area.
The conference was attended by representatives of the UN, the Council of Europe, the OSCE Mission to Serbia, international experts, as well as representatives of the competent ministries and institutions of the Republic of Serbia and the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights.
