The National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture (MNP) of the National Institute of Human Rights (INDDHH) recommends carrying out administrative investigations to the Judiciary, the Attorney General’s Office and the Ministry of the Interiorafter verifying 102 complaints of police irregularities in the current period of government, since 2020.
The report, accessed The Observeruses as a basis a study by the Public Defenders Association of July 2021, which reported on more than 60 cases of violations of the rights of people in police and judicial actions so far last yearand close to 40 in 2020 (plus a small number of cases with no year).
Among the 102 verified cases –which the NPM assures They are not all the cases that have occurred in the country. because only those cases “that responded to the query formulated” by the Public Defenders are collected– they were classified fifteen different types of crimes or misdemeanorsof which the NPM distinguished six for its analysis: police abuse, threats, illegal search, injuries, police provocation and lack of medical attention.
They were typified 62 cases of police abuse between 2020 and 2021, 21 injuries, eleven illegal raidsfive cases of lack of medical care, two cases of police provocation, and one threat.
The NPM report cites some cases, such as that of a person who stated that his head was hit against the wall in a sectional and they did not give him food or water for nine hours; another of a man who was detained to have an electronic device placed on him and he was beaten handcuffed and on his knees, which caused a fracture of three ribsor another case in which a house was entered with a five-year-old girl and people of legal age with “excessive force” and pointing firearms, without resistance by the people who lived there.
The study of the Association of Defenders of Trades noted the lack of a lawyer from the first moment of arrest in some casesa right that is important for detect cases of tortureas well as for guarantee “a full exercise of other rights”says the report.
There were also reported cases of “Irregular driving through the alleged signing of voluntary inspection forms”, in a number of police raids. Some cases were recorded in the aforementioned report, but the NPM warned that “There are few cases where the police take or show their cameras”so they can be ignored other cases of irregular raids.
recommendations
In addition to requesting the Judiciary, the Attorney General’s Office and the Ministry of the Interior to carry out administrative investigations in their offices in the face of repeated “alleged irregularities” of people dependent on their agencies throughout the proceedings of the casesas an indirect prevention mechanism, the NPM recommends to the Legislative Power “to typify torture as an autonomous crime in the Penal Code”to directly prevent this type of case, according to El País.
According to the organism, this typification must have a “clear wording and in accordance with the provisions of Articles 1 and 2 of the Convention against Torture, in accordance with what has been observed and recommended by international control agencies.”
In line with this recommendation, it also asks the Ministry of the Interior “advance a precise definition of the use of body cameras by the police”which determines “Who has the power to make the recordings, how is the switching on and off of the cameras regulated and how is the content accessed, establishing a record of who does it”in addition to regulating the storage of videos and their preservation time.
It also recommends that the Supreme Court of Justice urge the National Defense Directorate to install a dialogue table between Ministry of the Interior, Prosecutor’s Office and the NPM, for “adopt concrete actions” that guarantee access to a lawyer for those affected in cases of abuse.
He also wants this table to deal with the possibility of “develop and put into operation a register of cases of torture and other inhuman, cruel and degrading treatment”, as recommended by the Organization of American States (OAS). At this point, he invites the table to participate University of the Republic, the Parliamentary Commissioner and the Association of Public Defenders.
