A UN rapporteur says prisoners in Moldova spent 23 hours of their day in complete isolation, with only one hour to walk, alone, outside their cells. Manfred Nowak underlines rhat was despite the medical and psychiatric evidence that isolation, even after only a few weeks, might lead to serious mental problems and illnesses. He believes this to be a form of torture, Info-Prim Neo reports. At a news conference in the UN quarters in New York, Manfred Nowak called on Governments to review their policies on solitary confinement and to apply the practice only if absolutely necessary for a “legitimate purpose” and for as brief a period of time as possible Though the concept of human rights was now universally accepted, Manfred Nowak, the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, today warned that ill treatment was still “widespread”. He could not say that conditions of detainees had improved at all in the 60 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights had been adopted . He called the 9 million to 10 million people in detention around the world “forgotten prisoners”, and noted that they were one of society’s most vulnerable groups. While there had been some improvement in the treatment of prisoners in some regions, including in Latin America, where dictatorships had been replaced by democracies, incidents of torture were increasing in many parts of the world. Though progress has been made in human rights laws, that contrasted with “sobering realities on the ground”. An “implementation gap” existed, possibly caused by a lack of empathy for detainees, said Mr. Nowak. “Often, society doesn’t want to know what’s going on behind closed doors,” he added.