E/CN.4/2000/9/Add.3
page 3
I. INTRODUCTION
1.
Following a request by the Special Rapporteur, the Government of Romania invited him
to visit the country within the framework of his mandate. The visit, which took place from 19
to 29 April 1999, enabled the Special Rapporteur to achieve his aim of collecting first-hand
information from a wide range of contacts in order to better assess the situation with regard to
the practice of torture and ill-treatment in Romania.
2.
During his visit the Special Rapporteur held meetings in Bucharest from 19 to 22 April
and on 29 April with the following authorities: the Minister of Justice; the Deputy Ombudsman;
the General Prosecutor; the Chief Prosecutor, Military Prosecutor’s Office, Supreme Court of
Justice; the Secretary of State, Department for Child Protection; Secretary of State, Minister of
the Interior; the First Deputy General Inspector of the Romanian Police; the President of the
Human Rights Commission of the Senate; the President of the Human Rights Commission of the
House of Deputies; the Director of the Institute of Legal Medicine; and the General Director,
Department for Treaties and Consular Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
3.
The Special Rapporteur visited the following cities in Romania besides Bucharest:
Craiova, Bacau and Iasi. In each of these cities the Special Rapporteur met with the County
Police Chief Inspector and visited police lock-ups. In Bucharest the Special Rapporteur visited
the Jilava penitentiary and the Jilava penitentiary hospital, as well as Police Station 19. In
addition, he visited the Craiova penitentiary, which houses those prisoners who have received
life sentences in Romania, and the Iasi penitentiary. Further, the Special Rapporteur made brief
visits to police lock-ups in Urziceni municipality and Vashli.
4.
The Special Rapporteur also met persons who themselves or whose relatives had
allegedly been torture victims and he received verbal and/or written information from
non-governmental organizations, including the following: the Association for the Protection of
Human Rights - Helsinki Committee (APADOR-CH); the Romanian Group for the Defence of
Human Rights; the Romanian Independent Society of Human Rights (SIRDO); the League for
Human Rights Protection (LADO); the ICAR Foundation; and Rromani CRISS (Romani Centre
for Romani Studies and Social Action).
5.
The Special Rapporteur thanks the Government of Romania for allowing him to make
this visit and for its valuable collaboration. The Special Rapporteur also wishes to thank
UNDP-Bucharest for its assistance throughout the course of the mission.
A. The practice of torture: scope and context
6.
During the course of the past few years, the Special Rapporteur has transmitted
numerous allegations to the Government concerning ill-treatment and torture of detainees by the
police (see, for example, E/CN.4/1999/61, paras. 597-613). It is alleged that police frequently
use force to extract confessions or to punish criminal suspects.
7.
Most government officials with whom the Special Rapporteur met during his mission to
Romania emphasized that torture and ill-treatment is prohibited under the Constitution and the
Criminal Code. For example, the Minister of Justice stated that torture is not a dangerous