MaximsNewsNetwork: TORTURE & HUMAN RIGHTS UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY

MaximsNewsNetwork: 20 October 2009 - UNTV - United Nations: Manfred Nowak, special rapporteur on torture and other inhuman treatment who is here this week to present his report to the General Assembly will brief the press.

I knew torture is practiced in quite a high number of countries, some widespread or even systematic than in others but it is a global phenomenon, but I did not expect the conditions of detention are that bad as they are, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment told a press conference today (20 October).

Professor Manfred Nowak told journalists at the United Nations that one of his recommendations would be that the time had come to draft and adopt the United Nations convention on the rights of detainees.

Nowak said that many prisons were overcrowded, and filthy, and often lacking any kind of toilets.

Commenting on the situation of detainees at the United States detention center in Guantanamo Bay, he said that there were persons that refused to return to their countries of origin, and the US government was not going to send them against their will. That meant that there was a need for resettlement to third countries. Nowak said he was very encouraged that certain European governments and others were willing to take Guantanamo detainees, but he added that it was not enough, because there were still some forty, fifty people in need of resettlement.

Commenting on the situation of detained children, he said that it was a global phenomenon that children were put under detention, not only in underdeveloped countries but also in highly industrialized states where you had illegal immigrants entering countries without papers. Unaccompanied minors below the age of 18 were locked up often for many weeks and months pending deportation.

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• Torture
• human rights
• inhuman treatment
• UN General Assembly
• Manfred Nowak
• United Nations
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