A/HRC/28/50
are being held. These regular visits have made it possible to conduct a thorough review 3 of
the operation of the criminal justice system, including the criminal police, the public
prosecution service, judges and the prison system. Members of the police force and the
judiciary work under extremely poor conditions, due to a lack or complete absence of
infrastructure, trained personnel and adequate logistical resources. Public documents and
infrastructure were either completely destroyed or severely damaged by angry citizens
during the labour strikes that took place in 2007 in 30 out of 33 prefectures in the country.
34.
The OHCHR office in Guinea found that prisons were dilapidated and unsanitary
and that there was a lack of privacy due to overcrowding. International standards on
detention, particularly the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, 4 are
very poorly respected. In some prisons, such as those in Boffa and Boké, the latrines are
located inside small and overcrowded cells. As for the right to health, under an agreement
signed in 2004 between the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Justice, each prison
should have a health-care worker assigned to it. The implementation of this agreement, has
however, had very little impact and does not permit professional consultations or the
dispensing of medicines to detainees, who must pay for their own medication.
3.
Respect for physical integrity
35.
Respect for a person’s physical and moral integrity is an inalienable right and must
not be restricted under any circumstances. Torture is formally prohibited under article 5 of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights and article 6 of the Guinean Constitution.
36.
Torture and ill-treatment have long been commonplace in Guinea, particularly in
places of detention, where torture was the usual means of obtaining confessions and
information. The Criminal Code neither criminalizes nor defines torture. The Government
should intensify its efforts, in particular by speeding up the current legislative reform to
incorporate the Convention against Torture into Guinean positive law and by ratifying the
Optional Protocol to the Convention, so as to enable the Subcommittee on Prevention of
Torture to conduct unannounced visits. The Committee against Torture, in its concluding
observations on the initial report of Guinea, adopted on 20 May 2014 (CAT/C/GIN/CO/1),
expressed concern about the absence of legislation on torture, and stressed that this could
lead to impunity for perpetrators of torture.
4.
Freedom of movement
37.
The freedom to move about freely, to leave any country, including one’s own, and to
return to one’s own country, is a fundamental freedom guaranteed under article 13 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 12 of the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights. Article 10, paragraph 4, of the Guinean Constitution provides
that: “All citizens have the right to establish residence and travel throughout the territory of
the Republic, and to enter and leave it freely.”
38.
On 13 August 2014, the President declared a state of health emergency and
announced restrictions on gatherings and on the freedom of movement, including in the
areas most affected in Guinée Forestière along the borders with Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The decree established a cordon sanitaire to be manned by health workers and security and
3
4
GE.15-03278
Report on conditions of detention in Guinea, issued in October 2014 by the OHCHR office in Guinea,
available at www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/GN/ReportofGuinea_October2014.pdf.
Adopted by the first United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of
Offenders, held in Geneva in 1955 and approved by the Economic and Social Council in its
resolutions 663 C (XXIV) of 31 July 1957 and 2076 (LXII) of 13 May 1977.
9
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