DUSHANBE, July 27, 2016, Asia-Plus — More than 12,000 people are currently being held in Tajikistan’s jails, penal colonies and pretrial detention centers, Minister of Justice Rustam Shohmurod announced at a news conference in Dushanbe on July 27.
On the prison conditions in Tajikistan, the minister noted that the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture, Juan E. Mendez, had assessed them as satisfactory.
We will recall that during his visit to Tajikistan in February 2014, in the context of monitoring places of detention, the Special Rapporteur welcomed the expansion of the Ombudsperson’s mandate and that office’s willingness to cooperate with civil society to conduct visits to detention facilities. He regretted, however, that in recent cases civil society representatives were denied access to prisons to investigate alleged acts of mistreatment.
The minister also noted that construction of a new high-security penal colony in the Vahdat Township is under way. This penal colony is expected to accommodate 2,000 inmates.
A Bulgarian company has designed the new penal colony and inmates of penal colony # 1, which is located in the center of Dushanbe, will be transferred to the new penal colony in Vahdat, some 20 kilometers to the east of Dushanbe.
The Penitentiary System is responsible for managing the prison system in Tajikistan and has been part of the Ministry of Justice since 2002. Its 18 penitentiary institutions reportedly include eight correctional colonies (including one colony for women), one colony for juveniles, one prison and five pre-trial detention centers. There are also three regional units responsible for the execution of non-custodial sanctions.
