The Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) has published a report (see also in Serbian) on its periodic visit to Serbia from 9 to 19 March 2021 together with the response from the authorities (see also in Serbian).
While welcoming the measures taken by the Serbian authorities to reduce prison overcrowding and to upgrade the prison estate, the committee stresses that police ill-treatment remains a serious problem and recommends adopting more resolute measures to eradicate it and to ensure effective investigation of such allegations (see the English and Serbian versions of the executive summary).
As far as the police is concerned, the CPT delegation has received many credible allegations of torture and other forms of ill-treatment of detained persons by police officers (slaps, punches, kicks and truncheon blows, the application of electro-shocks by hand-held devices and by electric cables connected to a car battery, as well as the placing of persons in stress positions during police interviews). The committee recommends that the Serbian authorities adopt more resolute measures to eradicate police ill-treatment.
As regards prisons, the report welcomes the measures taken by the Serbian authorities to reduce prison overcrowding and to upgrade the prison estate. That said, local overcrowding and poor conditions of detention consisting of cramped, dilapidated, and unhygienic cells and sanitary facilities remained evident in certain parts of Belgrade District Prison and Požarevac Correctional Institution. The CPT urges the Serbian authorities to put in place an effective national strategy to tackle this problem as well as the poor offer of activities to prisoners, understaffing and the growing trade in psychoactive substances.
In their response the Serbian authorities provide information on the measures taken to prevent police ill-treatment of detained persons, and to ameliorate conditions in prisons and social care establishments.