The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) and seven partner Helsinki Committees released a report concerning Places of Detention in Serbia on January 24, 2006. Monitoring mission on places of detention in the Republic of Serbia was conducted on 30 and 31 May 2005. (02-FEB-06)

This article is based on International Helsinki Federation own press release and the Report, which has been edited for republication here by HRH / Mirsad Pandzic.

The IHF delegation in this, fifth mission, conducted under the project, “Preventing Torture in the Closed Institutions of Central and Eastern Europe”, financed by the European Commission, visited three types of institutions:

  1. a) Institutions for confinement of persons who had committed criminal offenses under the authority of the Ministry of Justice detained on suspicion of having committed an offence or of being sentenced for criminal offences under the authority of the Ministry of Justice
    b) The Prison Hospital in Belgrade, also under the authority of the Ministry of Justice
    c) Juvenile prisons for the purpose of re-education, under the authority of the Ministry of Justice
  2. Institutions for involuntary psychiatric hospitalization for the purpose of active treatment of mentally ill individuals under the authority of the Ministry of Health
  3. Institutions for involuntary placement of persons with developmental disabilities for the purpose of social care under the authority of the Ministry of Social Care.

Institutions that the IHF delegation visited are:

– District Prison in Belgrade
– Prison Hospital in Belgrade
– Penitentiary Reformatory for Juveniles in Valjevo
– Penitentiary Reformatory in Požarevac
– Penitentiary Reformatory for Women in Pozarevac
– Penitentiary Reformatory in Nis
– Psychiatric Hospital in Gornja Topaonica
– Special Institution for children and juveniles with intellectual disabilities in Stamnica

The delegation includes representatives from the following organizations: Bulgarian Helsinki Committee; Greek Helsinki Monitor; Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia; Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in the Republic of Macedonia; Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights in Poland; Hungarian Helsinki Committee; International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights; Moscow Helsinki Group.

IHF reported that the Serbian authorities and the staff in all visited institutions were for the most part cooperative during the delegations’ visits. The assessment of the situation was established on the basis of the visits that the IHF made the conversations with staff and inmates that were carried out by the IHF, and the written evidence that was submitted to IHF’s review. Drawing on their findings, the members of the IHF mission then formulated a number of recommendations on ways of improving the existing conditions of the visited facilities.

During the visits to the closed institutions in Serbia, the delegations were not always able to conduct private interviews with the inmates without close supervision of the prison authorities, says in the Report. The prison directors and other staff members were often in the immediate vicinity of the inmates, which prevented an objective information-gathering. Although all visited institutions were provided with and asked to fill out a general information questionnaire in advance, some of the institutions did not complete the questionnaire. One institution’s director refused to provide information altogether, while some others failed to follow up with the additional information they had initially promised, or claimed that they did not have some of the requested information, IHF reported.

The report is available online on the web sites of the International Helsinki Federation (http://www.ihf-hr.org  ) and the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (http://www.bghelsinki.org )