The Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) in its new report on its periodic visit to Armenia in December 2019, welcomed some positive developments in the penitentiary system (progress in addressing overcrowding, easier transfers of inmates to outside hospitals, significant facilitation of contacts with the outside world, no allegations of ill-treatment by staff). However, it noted with grave concern that some of its long-standing recommendations concerning the legal safeguards for persons in police custody, the material conditions, regime and health care in prisons, as well as staffing levels and legal safeguards in psychiatric establishments, remain to be implemented. The report was published together with the response of the Armenian Government (see the executive summary of the report).
The report covers the situation in the police establishments visited (Detention Centre of Yerevan City Police Department, as well as Kotayq, Armavir, Artashat, Goris, Hrazdan, Kapan, Sevan and Nairi Police Divisions), penitentiary establishments (Armavir Prison, Central Prison Hospital, Goris Prison, Hrazdan Prison, Nubarashen Prison, Sevan Prison and Yerevan-Kentron Prison), psychiatric establishments (Armash Health Centre, Forensic Psychiatric Unit of the National Centre for Mental Health Care and Syunik Psychiatric-Neurological Dispensary), as well as Dzorak Social Care Centre for Persons with Psychiatric Disorders.
As for police establishments, practically no complaints of ill-treatment in police custody were received. However, the practice of “informal talks” (i.e. persons being “invited” to come to the police, prior to being officially declared a suspect and prior to drawing up the protocol of detention, and frequently de facto held in what would appear to be unrecorded custody, for periods of hours and even days), criticised by the CPT many times in the past, has not been fully eliminated, especially outside Yerevan. The Committee once again calls upon the Armenian authorities to stop this practice. Material conditions in cells of police establishments continued to be generally satisfactory.
