CZECH REPUBLIC: COUNTER TORTURE INITIATIVES

UNCLAS PRAGUE 000443 SENSITIVE SIPDIS DEPT FOR DRL/MLGA KRISTEN MCGEENY, EUR/CE FOR JBERGMANN E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PHUM EZ SUBJECT: CZECH REPUBLIC: COUNTER TORTURE INITIATIVES REF: STATE 070129 ¶1. (SBU) Responding to reftel, the former Czechoslovakia signed the United Nations Convention Against Torture in 1986. The Czech Republic considers itself bound by international treaties entered into by Czechoslovakia. The fourth and fifth periodic reports of the Czech Republic to the UN Committee Against Torture are due December 31, 2009. In a response to questions by the Committee Against Torture in January 2008 in preparation for the periodic reports, the Czech government said that no person in the country had been investigated, prosecuted, or convicted of the criminal offense of "torture, and other forms of inhuman and cruel treatment" as defined by Section 259(a) of the criminal code from 1998 to 2005. Our Human Rights Reports have seconded this view. The Czech Office for the Documentation and Investigation of the Crimes of Communism (UDV) also investigates cases of torture, but the focus is on government authorities and Communist Party members of the former Communist regime for the period 1948-1989. ¶2. (SBU) One new mechanism used to prevent torture and protect victims is contained within the Czech Ombudsman Act. Since January 1, 2006, the Ombudsman has had the authority, without prior notification, to make systematic visits to detention facilities or to protective or institutional care facilities, with the goal of protecting individuals from torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. According to the Ombudsman's office, the Ombudsman regularly visits such facilities and has found no cases of torture or inhuman treatment. A second mechanism is police training. Police in the Czech Republic receive orientation training instructing them that they cannot use physical coercion to obtain information. Thompson-Jones