The Institute for Democracy from Gagauzia (lead applicant), Media-Center from Transnistria (co-applicant 1) and National Institute for Women of Moldova from Chisinau (co-applicant 2) will implement a 36-month project aimed at fighting against torture in Moldova. According to international experts the use of tortures is one of the most actual problems of loyalty to Human Rights in the Republic of Moldova.
According to national and international experts the use of tortures and other kinds of humiliating and cruel treatment is one of the most actual problems of loyalty to Human Rights in the Republic of Moldova. The UN Committee against Torture expressed the concern about numerous and reasonable allegations on wide application of torture against persons in police custody in the Republic of Moldova. The Committee also expressed concern that the alleged ill-treatments are used to obtain confessions and information as evidence in criminal proceedings.
The Manfred Nowak, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture has stated the fact of the wide spreading of inhuman treatment in the period of preliminary arrest in some police stations in the Republic of Moldova.
Not once have similar facts been put in the basis of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. This high institution awarded the people who had suffered the quite considerable sums of money to be paid from the state budget.
The UN Committee against Torture expressed the concern about “numerous and reasonable allegations on wide application of torture and other forms of ill-treatment against persons in police custody in the Republic of Moldova. Detainees in some police stations (e.g. Comrat) indicated that they received food only once per day”. The Committee also expressed concern that the alleged ill-treatments are used to obtain confessions and information as evidence in criminal proceedings.
In the “2018 U.S Human Rights Report: Moldova” is noted that “Human rights issues included torture at prisons and psycho-neurological institutions; harsh prison conditions. Ombudsman reported allegations of torture, mainly in detention facilities and psychiatric institutions, continued. There were cases of mistreatment in pretrial detention within police stations, particularly in regional police inspectorates. In most cases, police applied violence during detention as a means of intimidation or discrimination, to obtain evidence and confessions, and to punish alleged offenses. Most incidents involved beatings, followed by physical violence, other methods, such as beatings using batons, water bottles, and books, and threats or other forms of psychological abuse.
In August 2017 Andrei Braguta was found dead at Penitentiary No.16 while held in pretrial detention. The Prosecutor General’s Office detained five persons, including three police officers, on charges of torture, investigated an additional 10 officers suspected of mistreating detainees, and sued 13 police officers.
Residents of residential psychiatric facilities and psycho-neurological institutions continued to be subject to verbal and physical abuse, deprivation of liberty, forced labor, and forced medication.
According to a study by the Soros Foundation-Moldova, the last five years, about 27,000 (15%) of men said they were beaten after being detained by police. Witness protection is provided by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, leading to inefficient mechanism in cases of application of ill-treatment by police.
Amnesty International has published the report on this theme which says that in our country tortures are more often used by policemen in the stage of criminal prosecution. They try, in the direct sense of this word, “to beat out” from people the false witness against themselves criminating themselves, to impose the unsolved crimes on the people who were taken into custody in order to submit, in the end, the data showing the increase of “solved” crimes.
The Prosecutor General’s Office of the Republic of Moldova even spread the declaration in which it demand-ed from the Ministry of Inner Affairs to exclude the cases of tortures from its practice.
Catalina Devandas-Aguilar, the UN special rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities noted that authorities locked up children and adults with disabilities – sometimes for their entire lives – in inhuman conditions and also neglected and treated them in inhuman ways.
The Institute for Democracy from Gagauzia (lead applicant), Media-Center from Transnistria (co-applicant 1) and National Institute for Women of Moldova from Chisinau (co-applicant 2) will implement a 36-month project aimed at fighting against torture in Moldova. According to international experts the use of tortures is one of the most actual problems of loyalty to Human Rights in the Republic of Moldova.
Overall objective: Contributing to decrease in using torture in the Republic of Moldova.
Specific objectives: (1) Contributing to offering direct legal and psychological assistance to victims of torture and their social rehabilitation; (2) Contributing to increasing public awareness of inadmissibility of torture; (3) Contributing to implementing the provisions of international acts on inadmissibility of torture and the recommendations of the UN Committee against Torture in Moldova; (4) Contributing to creating an NGO network focused on combating torture and capacity building of the network members; (5) Contributing to improving the professional level of the organizations involved in protection against torture, and raising awareness of inadmissibility of torture and liability for applying it among healthcare workers, policemen, and teachers; (6) Contributing to capacity building activities for the People’s Advocate Office (Ombudsmen Office) and their staff; (7) Contributing to improving the knowledge of policemen and law students from Moldavian universities (future police officers, prosecutors, judges) on the responsibility for the application of tortures and methods to prevent torture; cultivating intolerant attitude toward torture in the law students; (8) Promoting the development of the policemen’s unacceptance and the fear of the use of torture in their practice.
Project activities: (1) 60 workshops for staff of detention centers, prisons, psychiatric hospitals, and policemen to raise their awareness of the liability for torture. (2) 45 interactive workshops for law students from Moldavian universities (as future policemen, judges and prosecutors) to raise their intolerance toward torture and international anti-torture acts. (3) 60 workshops for inmates, mental asylum patients, and children from boarding houses to teach them legal methods of opposing torture. (4) Creating three regional centers for offering direct legal, psychological, and rehabilitation assistance to victims of torture (real and prospective) in Chisinau, Gagauzia, and Transnistria. (5) Creating a permanently working NGO network for combating torture (including at least 15-20 NGOs) and capacity building for Network members. (6) Informational and legal assistance for increasing professionalism of anti-torture organizations (including the Ombudsmen Office) and their capacity building (via training materials, handbooks (including those on methods of addressing the ECHR), collections of international and national anti-torture acts, a special website, etc.). (7) Extensive public awareness campaign for increasing social intolerance towards torture and raising public awareness of the necessity of renewing the work of the National Preventive Mechanism against Torture. The campaign will include a series of TV and radio broadcasts, leaflets, articles in the media, press releases, stands, posters, etc.). The campaign will inform residents of Moldova of methods of protecting their rights in case or being tortures, and relevant basic international acts. (8) Monitoring prisons, police, mental asylums, and boarding schools to reveal torture and prepare recommendations on preventing it. (9) Sub-grant program for supporting organizations combating torture and its unchallenged use.
