Committee against Torture Adopts Concluding Observations on Australia, El Salvador, Chad,
Committee against Torture Adopts Concluding Observations on Australia, El Salvador, Chad, Malawi, Somalia and Uganda Before Closing its Seventy-Fifth Session
25 November 2022
The Committee against Torture this morning closed its seventy-fifth session after adopting its concluding observations on the reports of Australia, El Salvador, Chad, Malawi, Somalia and Uganda. The Committee also adopted its final concluding observations on Nicaragua, which were provisionally approved at its seventy-fourth session.
Going over some of the main aspects of the concluding observations, Claude Heller, Committee Chairperson, said concerning Australia, the Committee expressed deep concern that detention continued to be mandatory for all unauthorised arrivals, including children. The Committee requested the State party to repeal the legal provisions establishing the mandatory and indefinite detention of persons entering its territory irregularly and ensure that detention was only applied as a last resort and for as short a period as possible, and that children and families with children were not detained due to their immigration status.
The Committee was also concerned that indigenous people continued to be disproportionately affected by incarceration, reportedly representing around 30 per cent of the prison population, compared to 3.2 per cent of the total population. It called on Australia to identify the root causes of the overrepresentation of indigenous people in prisons and revise regulations that led to the high incarceration rates.
While welcoming El Salvador’s declaration of the unconstitutionality of the 1993 General Amnesty Act, the Committee expressed concern regarding the delays in adopting comprehensive legislation relating to transitional justice and asked El Salvador to enact such legislation. The Committee also acknowledged the information provided by the State party regarding the murder rates and serious public order disturbances attributed to the upsurge in gang violence in the territory, but expressed concern at the serious human rights consequences of the measures taken by the authorities under the state of emergency. In this connection, the Committee asked El Salvador to adopt effective measures to prevent arbitrary arrests without a warrant and ensure that detained persons were afforded all fundamental safeguards from the outset of their deprivation, and that emergency legislation complied with international human rights law.
More:
https://www.ohchr.org/en/news/2022/11/committee-against-torture-adopts-concluding-observations-australia-el-salvador-chad