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Wednesday 28 April 2010 – DAY THREE –
Daily Update
– 3
‘THE COMPULSORY DRUG TREATMENT
phenomenon is one that
taints Southeast Asia,
a speaker from
Human Rights Watch
told delegates in the
Harm reduction and human rights
session.
In January, Human Rights Watch had launched a report called
Skin on the cable – the illegal arrest, arbitrary detention and torture
of people who use drugs in Cambodia
, which documented human
rights violations against drug users in that country. These included
beatings, whippings, rapes and forced hard labour, he said.
The number of people detained in these centres was rising
exponentially, he said, with an increase of 40 per cent between
2008 and 2009. Around one in four of the detainees were under 18
– ‘the centres are illegally detaining adults, children and the mentally
ill. People are beaten, tortured and raped and there’s nothing that
approximates to what is recognised as drug treatment.’
Even ‘given the flimsiness’ of much of the legal structure in
Cambodia, procedures were not being followed, he said – ‘you
never see an order from a prosecutor, judge or court’. People were
being forced into detention either through ‘massive police sweeps’
or people paying the police to have their relatives arrested. ‘These
centres are operating extra-judicially, not within Cambodian law,’
he said.
One of the detainees interviewed for the report gave an account
of whipping – ‘on each whip the person's skin would come off and
stick on the cable’, hence the title of the report – in a centre in
receipt of UNICEF support, Choam Chao. Detainees from other
centres gave accounts of forced labour, coerced blood donation
and people being rolled in barrels.
The report calls for the Royal Government of Cambodia to
immediately close all centres and expand community services, as
well as investigate and hold to account those responsible for human
rights violations. It also calls on the international community to
communicate that the system violates international and Cambodian
law, request the closure of the centres and ‘not legitimise them
through engagement’.
Following the report’s publication, the Cambodian government’s
minister of the interior was approached by journalists and admitted
that the main focus of the treatment was ‘hard work, hard labour
and sweating’ – ‘and he found that justified’,
he
said.
However, the Cambodian prime minister did ultimately acknowledge
that the centres ‘did not meet medical standards’.
‘The report has been met with a mixed bag in terms of
response,’ he said. ‘Perhaps most disappointingly in terms of
UNICEF, which continues to fund that particular centre.’
Cambodians ‘violate international law’
Some states ‘highly committed’ to death penalty
‘ON A LEGAL ANALYSIS
, the conversation
is over,’ Patrick Gallahue of IHRA told
delegates. ‘It’s been repeated time and again
that drug offences do not meet the standard
of “most serious crimes”.’
Gallahue was presenting the findings of the
first country-by-country analysis of the death
penalty for drug offences, which was due to
be launched within the next month. Of 58
‘retentionist’ states, 32 retained legislation that
prescribed the death penalty for drugs
offences – however, ‘active and aggressive’
executors constituted a small minority of
those countries. Five of the countries were
considered abolitionist in practice, while
others had the death penalty prescribed but
did not use it – ‘the vast majority only have
such laws to appear to “get tough” on drugs.’
‘There’s a small minority highly committed
to the practice,’ he said. ‘On our estimation,
China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Singapore
and Malaysia.’ Some ‘educated guesses’ had
put the number of Chinese executions at
1,700 annually, many for drugs, while the
figure for Iran in 2009 was 172 executions out
of a total of 338. Saudi Arabia had executed
22 in 2008, the figure for Vietnam was
unknown, and Singapore and Malaysia were
‘down in recent years but traditionally they
have been very, very harsh.
‘There’s no good news in all this, only
degrees of bad, but progress is being made,’ he
continued. ‘Only a small minority of states have
actually brought the death penalty back for drug
offences. The death penalty for drug offences is
on the decline – it’s an extreme position carried
out by a small minority of states.’
‘‘...centres are illegally detaining adults,
children and the mentally ill. People are beaten, tortured and
raped and there’s nothing that approximates to what is
recognised as drug treatment.’
Patrick Gallahue:
‘Drug offences do not meet
the standard of “most serious crimes”.’