A/HRC/37/27 miscarriage of justice, including the creation or facilitation of false evidence by the State, and the subsequent conviction of innocent people, was the worst kind of breach of trust that a State could commit in relation to its people. State officials benefited from creating trust between themselves and the people. Prosecutors should not expect to see a confession in every case or request police to obtain confessions. 21. Mr. Baldan outlined the human rights training offered to police in Brazil. He spoke of the need to change police culture and believed that human rights needed to inform all aspects of police training to entrench ethical values. He underscored that there was no contradiction between civil liberties and community safety, and urged that military police not be used to deliver civilian police functions. Police instructors should receive regular training on human rights issues. Giving examples from the Sao Paulo Academy of Police, he described how members of the community of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons were invited to meet fortnightly with police trainees to share their experiences. He also said that Sao Paulo police chiefs had to attend mandatory training on human rights before promotion, and a postgraduate course in human rights had been developed for civilian, military and federal police, municipal officials and criminal lawyers. He spoke of the need to build more knowledge-sharing between academia and the police. Regarding specific safeguards, he underlined that a detainee’s lawyer should be present during the initial interrogation at a police station in order for a case to proceed. He underscored that federal police should take over whenever there was doubt about the integrity of the local or State police. He also called for routine searches of police stations and police cars for objects that could be used to inflict torture on detainees. 22. Ms. Samar referred to torture as an act against collective dignity that must be combated through a global approach, joint action against cultures of impunity and strong political will. She spoke about the significant challenges in Afghanistan, namely: continual instances of mass killings in the country; widespread public belief that torture was the only way to elicit confessions; the performance by multiple actors (including the intelligence service, which could arrest people in connection with national security activities) of police functions; private police forces that operated without transparency or accountability; lack of appropriate detention centres for the 30,000 people in detention at the time; lack of awareness of human rights among the general public and law enforcement officers; the culture of impunity and lack of accountability for acts of torture; the pervasive and undermining presence of corruption; the continued practice of torture in places of detention; the lack of compensation and rehabilitation for victims of torture; children being detained with adults; and the lack of a system of registration to document all detentions. 23. She referred to the establishment of a 15-member Commission against Torture in 2017, chaired by the Chair of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, and including representatives of the ministries responsible for the interior, for defence and for justice, the intelligence service, the Attorney General and civil society. The Commission had made legislative recommendations to assist Afghanistan in complying with its international obligations. It would be helpful if members of the Commission could follow up with the Committee against Torture on its recommendations. She also underlined the importance of torture being prohibited in the Constitution of Afghanistan, and made a criminal offence under its Penal Code. 24. In the discussion that followed, the importance of officials breaking rank if they witnessed torture or ill-treatment of detainees was highlighted. A representative of a member State referred to the need for: police trainees to receive mandatory courses on human rights as part of their training; for police to undertake a refresher course every three years; and for there to be disciplinary action against heads of police divisions if human rights abuses persisted. A representative of another member State emphasized that many suspected terrorists had been trained on how to render false allegations of torture credible. A representative of a third member State asked about the best methods of implementing legislation designed to prevent, investigate and punish torture, and determining whether torture had occurred, observing that some allegations of torture seemed to be designed to impede the progress of criminal trials and generate compensation for detainees. A representative of another member State noted the growing momentum at the international, regional and national levels to move away from confessions and adopt investigative 8

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