The UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture visited Belize for the first time last week. They spent five days here and visited the central prison, police stations throughout the country, as well as a juvenile institution, where - a release says "members of the delegation freely interviewed staff as well as people deprived of their liberty."
Their conclusion?: Belize must establish an independent national preventive mechanism to avert and deter torture and ill-treatment of people deprived of their liberty.
"A national preventive mechanism is an independent national body with power to regularly examine the treatment of persons deprived of their liberty in places of detention, and to subsequently make recommendations to the authorities."
The release from the Subcommittee says this body must be "independent, adequately resourced and mandated to carry out unannounced visits to places where people are deprived of liberty." They say this will "help the authorities improve the conditions of detention and ensure an effective policy for preventing torture and ill-treatment."
The subcommittee will submit a confidential report to Government, and encourage it to make the report public.
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