DUSHANBE, December 25, 2012, Asia-Plus — Parents of children, who are serving their terms in juvenile correctional colony, say their children are complaining of ill-treatment and beatings.
According to them, such cases began to occur after Ismat Qurbonov was appointed as head of this correctional colony for juveniles.
The parents have told Asia-Plus that they applied to the Ombudsman’s Office on Monday and asked to investigate the situation, “because some teens say they will commit suicide if the ill-treatment is not stopped.”
“Our children say they have undergone constant beating and ill-treatment after new head of the colony was appointed,” the parents told the Ombudsman’s Office representative in an interview. “They strip the children to the buff during cold weather, gather them on the drill ground and beat them with truncheons. They may place the children to a penal isolation ward for nothing. When it is raining or snowing, they make children clean up the prison yard with footcloths. Parcels do not always reach the children.”
One of women said that the son asked her to somehow stop that nightmare, otherwise he would broach a vein.
The parents of the juvenile prisoners asked the Ombudsman to launch the probe into the situation, organize forensic medical examination of the prisoners and bring those guilty to justice. They asked not to disclose names of their children, because they fear that the children will be punished.
Representative of the Ombudsman’s Office has promised to investigate all arguments given in their applications.
Meanwhile, the Social-Democratic Party of Tajikistan (SDPT) has also received similar complaints and they have sent appropriate applications to the State Committee for National Security, Prosecutor-General’s Office, Ministry of Justice, Ombudsman’s Office and the OSCE Office in Tajikistan with solicitation to thoroughly investigate the cases of torture and ill-treatment in the juvenile correctional colony.
SDPT leader Rahmatillo Zoirov says he has offered to set up a special commission to monitor torture and ill-treatment in Tajik penal institutions. According to him, the commission members should include not only representatives of the penitentiary system but also representatives of parliament, political parties and media. Zoirov, in particular, offered to include Ombudsman or its representative, representatives of the Ministry of Justice, the Prosecutor-General’s Office, political parties, barristers’ associations, human rights organizations and media in that commission.
SDPT expressed readiness to provide five lawyers to work with the commission.
The commission members should visit prisons and talk to inmates and deal with reported cases of rights violations, SDPT leader stressed.
The Department of Correctional Works is responsible for managing the prison system in Tajikistan and has been part of the Ministry of Justice since 2002. Its 19 penitentiary institutions include 13 correctional colonies (including one colony for women and one colony for juveniles), one prison and five pre-trial detention centers. There are also five regional units responsible for the execution of non-custodial sanctions.
