Campaign to promote right to rehabilitation of torture victims

23.06.2015 13:13
1977
3 minute(s)

They continue to use torture in Moldova. The detention conditions in Penitentiary No. 13 are inhuman and the police started to use ‘wiser’ torture methods. The legislation in the field needs to be improved, while those who use torture must be punished harsher, without postponing the examination of the criminal cases started against these. Such recommendations were formulated by representatives of the Rehabilitation Center for Torture Victims “Memoria”, Amnesty International Moldova, the Legal Resources Center of Moldova and Promo-LEX Association in a news conference at IPN.

The members of civil society are launching the anti-torture week in Moldovan connection with the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture that is marked on June 26. This year’s campaign focuses on the rehabilitation of victims of torture and other inhuman and degrading treatment.

Vadim Vieru, of Promo-LEX, said that a series of programs about the phenomenon of torture and its results will be staged within this week. A marathon and a meeting of those who help the victims of torture and the victims will be mounted in the Park “Valea Morilor” on June 27.

Vadim Vieru added that the phenomenon of torture in Moldova is a system problem. Last year, there were submitted over 600 complaints about the use of torture, but the real number of such cases is much higher. The constitutional authorities do not have a mechanism to punish those who resort to torture in the Transnistrian region, where the situation is tragic, with the penitentiaries there being overcrowded and the people being held in inhuman conditions.

Ludmila Popovici, executive director of the Center “Memoria”, said it is regrettable that despite the broad recognition of the phenomenon of torture, impunity persists. She noted she worked in the field of rehabilitation of torture victims for 15 years and knows that these people need support. Until the victims of torture are not devoted appropriate attention, Moldovan society will not move on.

Igor Stoica, project coordinator at Amnesty International Moldova, said that even if the legislation was more or less adjusted to the needs, the examination of the cases of torture is delayed by prosecutors and judges. Moldova loses by a case concerning the use of torture and inhuman treatment at the ECHR almost monthly.