NPM Croatia chaired the South East Europe NPM Network in 2020, convening two workshops about monitoring safeguards in police custody and on monitoring during COVID-19. To do so, it has initiated partnerships with two reference international stakeholders in the sector, the Geneva-based APT and the Vienna-based Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights (BIM) and with the financial support of the Joint Project “European NPM Forum”, funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe, and implemented by the Council of Europe
Within the criminal justice system, the first hours of police custody are well-known as bearing the highest risks of torture and ill-treatment worldwide. In these settings, the implementation of fundamental detention safeguards including the detainees’ access to a lawyer, access to a doctor and notification of detention to a third party are key to mitigating these risks and preventing abuse.
“Access to a doctor in police custody is a safeguard against torture and ill-treatment. To be effective, medical personnel must be trained to detect signs of abuses”.
Watch this video to find out what monitoring bodies from the South East Europe NPM Network are doing to prevent torture.