04.10.01
Urgent Interventions
Press Release: The World Organisation Against Torture Welcomes both the Inclusion of the Issue of Torture in the WCAR Declaration and Programme of Action and the adoption of a follow up mechanism to the WCAR but deplores the watered-down language on racis
After Durban…
The World Organisation Against Torture Welcomes both the Inclusion of the Issue of Torture in the WCAR Declaration and Programme of Action and the adoption of a follow up mechanism to the WCAR but deplores the watered-down language on racism in the entire criminal justice system.
From the very beginning of the preparatory process of the Conference, the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) called upon the WCAR to urge participating States to recognize the link between racism, racial discrimination and torture, ill-treatment or any kind of violence.
During the various sessions of the preparatory committees for this conference and in regional NGO meetings, the OMCT either individually, or more often in close collaboration with some 50 NGO members of the international Caucus on criminal justice, strived to ensure that these particularly grave and sensitive questions deserved to be treated with the highest degree of priority.
The WCAR documents failed to adequately mention that all over the world, particularly vulnerable groups are subjected to torture on the basis of race, ethnic origin and other forms of prejudice. Recalling that article 1 of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment stipulates, in its definition of torture, that discrimination of any kind is one of the prohibited grounds of an act of torture, OMCT underlines that discrimination of any kind can create a climate in which torture and ill-treatment of groups subjected to intolerance and discriminatory treatment can more easily be accepted. Discrimination undercuts the realization of equality of all persons before the law.
In this respect, OMCT wishes to express its gratitude to the Swiss delegation which proposed the amendment to paragraph 194 of the WCAR Programme of Action « Urges States to provide victims of racial discrimination, including victims of torture, ill-treatment or any kind of violence, with all appropriate methods of justice and legal assistance in a manner adapted to their specific needs and vulnerability, including exemption from fees, simplification of procedures, legal representation and establishment, as appropriate, of specially adapted jurisdictions to deal with such cases».
However, OMCT notes with deep concern that the issue of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance within the criminal justice, prison and detention systems and law enforcement agencies was not adequately addressed by the World Conference Against Racism in Durban. Whereas the legal system should be considered as a last level of protection for vulnerable groups, indigenous people, migrants, asylum seekers, refugees, and outcasts, in fact it is often one more stage in a series of racist manifestations. Although founded on principals of equality, the legal system in fact contributes most to the invisible racism that lurks behind laws, and institutional legal structures. The penitentiary system is founded on the principal of rehabilitation and reinsertion, but here again, it is a system that is conducive to criminal tendencies amongst vulnerable minority groups who form the prison population and who are, in a disproportionate measure, the victims of capital punishment, hard labour and the absence of conditional release or probation.
Despite the evidence of racial disparities in the application of the death penalty and other aspects of criminal justice systems worldwide, the WCAR Declaration and Programme of Action failed to address this serious problem in a meaningful way. Furthermore, OMCT expresses its disappointment that the WCAR did not devote sufficient attention in its Programme of Action to the problems of racial profiling, sentencing disparities, the exploitation of prisoners as slave labour and the ill-treatment of refugees and asylum seekers in detention centres. While the WCAR Programme of Action urges states to take measures to eliminate «racial profiling», the use of race as the basis for interrogation, it does not mention the need to collect data and to implement measures to eliminate racial discrimination throughout the entire criminal justice system. OMCT also notes that participating States failed to address the issue of racial discrimination in the treatment of prisoners and to implement a stringent review and regulation of private prisons despite the systematic lack of protection of the affected persons, including lack of access to translators and interpreters at all stages of the criminal process, and lack of access to adequate defence.
OMCT attaches great importance to the follow-up mechanisms which have been set up. It is for this reason that the delegation of OMCT, together with others international Non-Governmental Organisations called on States participating in the Conference to create a permanent Observatory composed of eminent and independent experts and to put at the disposal of this Observatory all the necessary means, in human and material terms, to follow up the implementation of the Programme of Action. We expect this Observatory to reinforce all the activities of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and of the different institutional and conventional mechanisms.
OMCT, together with several NGO members of the International Criminal Justice Caucus, urges all governments gathered in Durban to commit themselves to the full implementation of non-discriminatory criminal justice and penal systems, and equal access to justice for all. Such a commitment is nothing but necessary to ensure better treatment of victims of racial and other forms of discrimination worldwide.
Contact : Elsa Le Pennec, Programme officer, World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT)
OMCT’s contribution to the WCAR: «Racism and Torture from national preference to interethnic violence» is available at the International Secretariat . OMCT, 8 rue du Vieux-Billard, P.O. Box 21, CH 1211 Geneva, Switzerland, Email : omct@omct.org, Website : http://www.omct.org
The World Organisation Against Torture Welcomes both the Inclusion of the Issue of Torture in the WCAR Declaration and Programme of Action and the adoption of a follow up mechanism to the WCAR but deplores the watered-down language on racism in the entire criminal justice system.
From the very beginning of the preparatory process of the Conference, the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) called upon the WCAR to urge participating States to recognize the link between racism, racial discrimination and torture, ill-treatment or any kind of violence.
During the various sessions of the preparatory committees for this conference and in regional NGO meetings, the OMCT either individually, or more often in close collaboration with some 50 NGO members of the international Caucus on criminal justice, strived to ensure that these particularly grave and sensitive questions deserved to be treated with the highest degree of priority.
The WCAR documents failed to adequately mention that all over the world, particularly vulnerable groups are subjected to torture on the basis of race, ethnic origin and other forms of prejudice. Recalling that article 1 of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment stipulates, in its definition of torture, that discrimination of any kind is one of the prohibited grounds of an act of torture, OMCT underlines that discrimination of any kind can create a climate in which torture and ill-treatment of groups subjected to intolerance and discriminatory treatment can more easily be accepted. Discrimination undercuts the realization of equality of all persons before the law.
In this respect, OMCT wishes to express its gratitude to the Swiss delegation which proposed the amendment to paragraph 194 of the WCAR Programme of Action « Urges States to provide victims of racial discrimination, including victims of torture, ill-treatment or any kind of violence, with all appropriate methods of justice and legal assistance in a manner adapted to their specific needs and vulnerability, including exemption from fees, simplification of procedures, legal representation and establishment, as appropriate, of specially adapted jurisdictions to deal with such cases».
However, OMCT notes with deep concern that the issue of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance within the criminal justice, prison and detention systems and law enforcement agencies was not adequately addressed by the World Conference Against Racism in Durban. Whereas the legal system should be considered as a last level of protection for vulnerable groups, indigenous people, migrants, asylum seekers, refugees, and outcasts, in fact it is often one more stage in a series of racist manifestations. Although founded on principals of equality, the legal system in fact contributes most to the invisible racism that lurks behind laws, and institutional legal structures. The penitentiary system is founded on the principal of rehabilitation and reinsertion, but here again, it is a system that is conducive to criminal tendencies amongst vulnerable minority groups who form the prison population and who are, in a disproportionate measure, the victims of capital punishment, hard labour and the absence of conditional release or probation.
Despite the evidence of racial disparities in the application of the death penalty and other aspects of criminal justice systems worldwide, the WCAR Declaration and Programme of Action failed to address this serious problem in a meaningful way. Furthermore, OMCT expresses its disappointment that the WCAR did not devote sufficient attention in its Programme of Action to the problems of racial profiling, sentencing disparities, the exploitation of prisoners as slave labour and the ill-treatment of refugees and asylum seekers in detention centres. While the WCAR Programme of Action urges states to take measures to eliminate «racial profiling», the use of race as the basis for interrogation, it does not mention the need to collect data and to implement measures to eliminate racial discrimination throughout the entire criminal justice system. OMCT also notes that participating States failed to address the issue of racial discrimination in the treatment of prisoners and to implement a stringent review and regulation of private prisons despite the systematic lack of protection of the affected persons, including lack of access to translators and interpreters at all stages of the criminal process, and lack of access to adequate defence.
OMCT attaches great importance to the follow-up mechanisms which have been set up. It is for this reason that the delegation of OMCT, together with others international Non-Governmental Organisations called on States participating in the Conference to create a permanent Observatory composed of eminent and independent experts and to put at the disposal of this Observatory all the necessary means, in human and material terms, to follow up the implementation of the Programme of Action. We expect this Observatory to reinforce all the activities of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and of the different institutional and conventional mechanisms.
OMCT, together with several NGO members of the International Criminal Justice Caucus, urges all governments gathered in Durban to commit themselves to the full implementation of non-discriminatory criminal justice and penal systems, and equal access to justice for all. Such a commitment is nothing but necessary to ensure better treatment of victims of racial and other forms of discrimination worldwide.
Contact : Elsa Le Pennec, Programme officer, World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT)
OMCT’s contribution to the WCAR: «Racism and Torture from national preference to interethnic violence» is available at the International Secretariat . OMCT, 8 rue du Vieux-Billard, P.O. Box 21, CH 1211 Geneva, Switzerland, Email : omct@omct.org, Website : http://www.omct.org