Colombian Government Refuses to Ratify Torture Convention
News from Colombia |
on: Wednesday, 20 July 2011
The Colombian Coalition Against Torture has expressed concern at the Colombian government’s refusal to ratify the Optional Protocol of the UN Convention Against Torture. This protocol establishes a system of visits by independent national and international organisations to prisons in order to prevent torture and cruel and inhuman treatment.
The government’s declaration came in response to a petition organised last year by the Coalition Against Torture which called for the government to ratify the Optional Protocol. The government claims that ratifying the protocol is unnecessary since it already has various internal mechanisms.
However, the Coalition Against Torture states that these internal measures are ineffective. Colombia ratified the Convention Against Torture in 1987, but the Coalition says that despite this, torture continues to be systematic and generalised and there have been no investigations, trials or sentences handed down to perpetrators of torture.
The Coalition reports that in Colombia torture is often used on victims before disappearances or killings, and thus is often not reported, which makes it difficult to analyse as a separate issue. The Coalition claims that torture is also used as a form of political persecution, used to repress social protest and to elicit confessions and information, as well as to intimidate prisoners in detention facilities, and to sow terror within communities.
The Coalition will soon release a report on the issue of torture in Colombia.
