CAT/C/31/D/213/2002
Page 3
1.2
The State party ratified the Convention on 8 January 1986, when it also made the
declaration under article 22 of the Convention. The Convention entered into force for the State
party on 26 June 1987.
1.3
In accordance with article 22, paragraph 3, of the Convention, the Committee transmitted
the complaint to the State party on 1 July 2002.
The facts as submitted by the complainant:
2.1
The complainant joined the Youth Section of the Popular Vanguard Party (Communist)
of Costa Rica in 1975, when he was a drama student at the University of Costa Rica. As an
active member of Costa Rica’s Vanguard Youth (JVC), he participated in various student
political and cultural activities.
2.2
The complainant was arrested for the first time in 1975 during a student political meeting.
Along with the other participants he was taken to a prison in San Juan de Tibás, where he alleges
that he was physically and mentally tortured - insulted, threatened, kicked, his hair pulled, beaten
on the ribs and spat on.
2.3
The complainant managed to escape from prison and made for the province of Limón.He
alleges that he was arrested several times and imprisoned in inhumane conditions, among
convicted criminals, in rat-infested premises, with neither food nor a blanket nor anywhere to
sleep. He alleges that he was arrested and released on numerous occasions, being allowed to
leave and then being arrested again after 50 metres. He was finally able to escape and return to
San José.
2.4
In San José, the complainant again became involved in political activities at university.
He alleges that he was arrested several times; while in detention he received death threats and
was beaten and burned with cigarettes. He says that on one occasion he was taken to the General
Detention Facility of the Ministry of Public Security, where he was subjected to numerous types
of physical and mental ill-treatment, including being severely kicked and beaten, immersed in
cold water in the early morning and forced to perform sexual acts with his captors.
2.5
The complainant claims that, because of his Communist affiliations, he was prevented
from working in the National Theatre Company and suspended from his acting classes. He also
alleges that he was publicly attacked because he was bisexual.
2.6
The complainant says that he fled to Venezuela, where he lived for two years before
returning to Costa Rica in 1982. On his return he set up an underground theatre from which
Radio Venceremos, the official medium of the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación
Nacional (FMLN), used to make clandestine broadcasts. He alleges that in 1985 security forces
raided his house, beat him up and took him to San Juan de Tibás prison, where he was physically
and mentally tortured.
2.7
The complainant alleges that one night in the early 1990s, he was again detained, beaten
and forced to perform fellatio on one of the guards while another insulted him. A third guard