The phenomenon of torture continues to represent a shameful stain on Moldova’s image, while the government has serious shortcomings in eradicating it, people’s ombudsman Anatolie Munteanu said in the program “Place for dialogue” on the public station Radio Moldova, IPN reports.
According to Munteanu, for the phenomenon to be eradicated, the mentality should be changed. “We inherited an outdated system both as architecture and as mentality. First of all, we need to change the mentality. Let’s admit that the remand centers will be repaired and modern conditions will be created there. But if people with the same mentality remain, the fight against torture is doomed to failure,” said the ombudsman.
Anatol Muntean also said that many cases of torture are committed by police officers and the current system for assessing the performance of the police is the main reason for such a state of affairs. “The crime discovery indexes should no longer be used as criteria for assessing the performance of police officers. The admission of guilt by the suspect must not be considered the major proof. Only scientifically substantiated evidence should be taken into account,” he stated.
The ombudsman pleaded for increasing the number of prosecutors empowered to investigate cases of torture and to more scrupulously monitor these cases, with the active involvement of civil society.
However, Anatol Munteanu considers that the authorities made certain progress in fighting torture. There were implemented a number of relevant policies. “The unplanned inspections at detention places and psychiatric hospitals is an effective instrument. During six years, there were carried out almost 1,000 such inspections. The managers of these institutions know that they can be anytime inspected and became more attentive. Together with a nongovernmental organization, we examined the detention places of police stations. As a result of this act, the Government allocated 2.2 million lei for repairing these places,” he said.
Moldova has lost 103 cases concerning the use of torture at the European Court of Human Rights.
