HUMAN RIGHTS: OUR COMMON WEALTH

Dear CHRN members,

Please find below a press release about a recent mission to Cyprus, one of
our few European members of the Commonwealth...

Best wishes,

Clare Doube

Commonwealth Human Rights Network


22.12.2004 - A delegation of the Council of Europe's Committee for the
Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT)
carried out a visit to Cyprus from 8 to 17 December 2004. It was the
Committee's fourth periodic visit to Cyprus.
The CPT's delegation examined the treatment of persons detained by the
police (including immigration detainees) and the effectiveness of the formal
safeguards against ill-treatment which are available to such persons. It
also reviewed developments at the Central Prisons and Athalassa Psychiatric
Hospital and, for the first time in Cyprus, examined the situation in places
accommodating children in the care of the authorities.  The delegation will
return early in 2005 in order to visit places in the northern part of Cyprus
where persons are deprived of their liberty.
In the course of the visit, the delegation held consultations with Doros
THEODOROU, Minister for Justice and Public Order, as well as Sotos ZACKHEOS,
Lazaros SAVVIDES, Andis TRYPHONIDES and Petros KAREKLAS, Permanent
Secretaries respectively of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Interior,
Justice and Public Order, and Defence. It also met Solon NIKITAS, Attorney
General, and Eliana NICOLAOU, Commissioner for Administration
(Ombudsperson).
The visit was carried out by the following members of the CPT:
* Mario FELICE, Head of delegation (Maltese)
* Isolde KIEBER (Liechtensteiner)
* Mauro PALMA (Italian)
* Ole Vedel RASMUSSEN (Danish).

They were supported by Jan MALINOWSKI, Head of Unit, Caterina BOLOGNESE and
Muriel ISELI of the CPT's Secretariat, and assisted by two experts, Timothy
HARDING, Director of the University Institute of Forensic Medicine, Geneva
(Switzerland), and James McMANUS, Professor of Criminal Justice, Glasgow
Caledonian University (United Kingdom).
The delegation visited the following places:
Police establishments
* Police Prison (Block 10 of Nicosia Central Prisons)
* Central Police Stations of Larnaca, Limassol and Paphos
* Aradippou Police Station
* Lycavitos Police Station, Nicosia
* Holding facilities for immigration detainees at Larnaca Airport and at the
former Famagusta Police Station, Larnaca

Prisons
* Nicosia Central Prisons

Psychiatric establishments
* Athalassa Psychiatric Hospital

Establishments for children
* Nicosia Hostel, Latsia
* Paphos Home for Children


CPT Press release