Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance & Other Ill Treatment In the early years of the 21st Century, 2000 to
2025 gvnet.com/torture/Bosnia-Herzegovina.htm
|
|||||||||||
|
CAUTION: The following links
have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in
Bosnia-Herzegovina. Some of these
links may lead to websites that present allegations that are unsubstantiated
or even false. No attempt has been made to validate their authenticity
or to verify their content. HOW TO USE THIS WEBPAGE Students If you are looking
for material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on this
page and others to see which aspects of Torture by Authorities are of
particular interest to you. You might
be interested in exploring the moral justification for inflicting pain or
inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment in order to obtain critical
information that may save countless lives, or to elicit a confession for a
criminal act, or to punish someone to teach him a lesson outside of the
courtroom. Perhaps your paper might
focus on some of the methods of torture, like fear, extreme temperatures,
starvation, thirst, sleep deprivation, suffocation, or immersion in freezing
water. On the other hand, you might
choose to write about the people acting in an official capacity who
perpetrate such cruelty. There is a
lot to the subject of Torture by Authorities.
Scan other countries as well as this one. Draw comparisons between activity in
adjacent countries and/or regions.
Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper
resources that are available on-line. ***
ARCHIVES *** 2020 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices: Bosnia and Herzegovina U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, 30 March 2021 www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/bosnia-and-herzegovina/
[accessed 6 July
2021] TORTURE AND OTHER
CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT The law prohibits
such practices. While there were no reports that government officials
employed such measures, there were no concrete indications that security
forces had ended the practice of severely mistreating detainees and prisoners
reported in previous years. Impunity was a
significant problem in the security forces. Freedom House
Country Report 2018 Edition freedomhouse.org/country/bosnia-and-herzegovina/freedom-world/2018 [accessed 11 May
2020] F3. IS THERE PROTECTION FROM THE ILLEGITIMATE
USE OF PHYSICAL FORCE AND FREEDOM FROM WAR AND INSURGENCIES? Harassment by
police remains routine for vulnerable groups. Many prisons are run down or
overcrowded, and detainees risk abuse by prison authorities. The thousands of
active mine fields still in place following the war continue to pose a
danger. Two civilians were killed and one was injured in mine accidents between
January and September 2017. Council of Europe
anti-torture Committee publishes response of the authorities of Bosnia and
Herzegovina Council of Europe
COE, 2 March 2017 REPORT, rm.coe.int/168069d019 [accessed 4 June
2020] Torture and other
forms of ill-treatment 12. In the
course of the
visit, the CPT’s
delegation received a
considerable number of allegations of
widespread physical ill-treatment of
detained persons by
law enforcement officials throughout the
country. The alleged
ill-treatment mostly concerned
kicks and punches
to various parts of
the body as well as
blows with batons.
However, credible allegations
were also received relating to
the handcuffing of
detained persons in
stress positions for
hours on end,
the use of a
hand-held electro-shock device
and other non-standard instruments. Once
again, several persons stated that they had been subjected
to a mock execution with a pistol pointed at their temple and the
trigger pulled or
they had had
the barrel of
a pistol inserted
into their mouth.
A number of allegations of verbal abuse and threats
by police officers were also heard. The
allegations of ill-treatment by
police officers related
to the period
following arrest, during
transport and when held at police stations and/or during the time when
suspects were being questioned by crime
inspectors in their
offices, sometimes for
prolonged periods, prior
to being placed in holding
cells or transferred to the prosecutor’s offices. The CPT continues to have
serious concerns that the infliction of ill-treatment for the purposes of
trying to extort a confession remains a frequent practice by crime inspectors
throughout the country. Human
Rights Watch World Report 2015 - Events of 2014 Human Rights Watch,
29 January 2015 www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/...
or
www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/wr2015_web.pdf [accessed 18 March
2015] BiH Political deadlock
in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) continued to impede needed reforms in 2014
despite widespread protests in February expressing broad economic and
political dissatisfaction. The protests were marked by incidents of police
brutality. Journalists remained vulnerable to intimidation and threats. Torture in
Republika Srpska: the police in the dock Rodolfo Toč &
Banja Luka, Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso, 15 October 2013 [accessed 15 Oct
2013] The mission, led by
Ukrainian CPT Vice-President Mykola Gnatovskyy, performed its own
investigations in police institutions and prisons in all major cities of RS
(Banja Luka, Bijeljina, Doboj, Istočno Sarajevo, Gradiška, and
Prnjavor), with alarming results. In fact, while commending the "good
cooperation" of RS institutions, the examiners highlighted "a considerable
number of detailed, consistent, and coherent records of mistreatment by the
police in Republika Srpska", mainly during interrogation in order to
extort confessions. These mistreatments mostly include "kicks, punches,
and slaps, but also beatings with blunt objects (such as baseball
bats)". Numerous testimonies denounce the use of small, portable
mechanisms for electric shock. In other cases, the police handcuffed suspects
forcing them into stress positions for hours, or tied plastic bags around their
heads. On some occasions, they resorted to mock executions to terrorize the
suspect Conclusions and
recommendations of the Committee against Torture U.N. Convention
against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment -- Doc. CAT/C/BIH/CO/2-5
(2011) www1.umn.edu/humanrts/cat/observations/bosnia2011.html [accessed 23
February 2013] 8. While noting
that the State party envisages amending the Criminal Code and harmonizing the
legal definition of torture in the State and entity laws, the Committee
remains concerned that the State party has still not incorporated into
domestic law the crime of torture as defined in article 1 of the Convention
and has not criminalized torture inflicted by or at the instigation of or
with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting
in an official capacity (arts. 1 and 4). The Committee, in
line with its previous recommendations (CAT/C/BIH/CO/1, para. 9), urges the
State party to speed up the process of the incorporation of the crime of
torture, as defined in the Convention, into the State party laws as well as
the harmonization of the legal definition of torture in the Republika Srpska
and Brcko District with the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The State party
should also ensure that these offences are punishable by appropriate
penalties which take into account their grave nature, as set out in article
4, paragraph 2, of the Convention. AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL From an old article -- URL not available Article was
published sometime prior to 2015 ENFORCED
DISAPPEARANCES
- Despite problems with budget allocations for exhumations caused by the
absence of the government, exhumations continued. In January, the State
Prosecutor’s Office assumed control of exhumations previously conducted by
local prosecutors, which had a positive impact in expediting the recovery of
the remains of missing people from mass and clandestine graves. Around 10,000
people were still unaccounted for. Unwillingness of insider witnesses to
provide information on mass graves remained the biggest obstacle in the
process. In February, the
Central Record of Missing Persons was created as a permanent database in BiH.
It gathered around 34,000 names from various existing databases and conducted
verification of those names. It was expected that the database would help the
state-level Missing Persons Institute to strategically address the remaining
cases. Despite the
accurate DNA-led identifications made by the International Commission on
Missing Persons over the past years, the identification process began to slow
down. The Commission reported that around 8,000 bodies had already been
identified through the classical methods of identification. However, due to
the existence of hundreds of secondary, tertiary and quaternary mass grave
sites, the recovery of body parts of already identified and buried people
could continue for years. Despite progress
made in the recovery and identification of disappeared people and the
prosecution of perpetrators, victims’ families were still denied the rights
to justice and reparation. The
non-implementation of the 2004 Law on Missing Persons led to problems for the
families of the disappeared, including the lack of independent functioning of
the Missing Persons Institute and the non-existence of the Fund for Providing
Assistance to the Families of Missing Persons. In addition, many judgements
of the Constitutional Court of BiH in cases involving enforced disappearances
remained unimplemented. Search … AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL For current
articles:: Search Amnesty
International Website www.amnesty.org/en/search/?q=bosnia+torture&ref=&year=&lang=en&adv=1&sort=relevance [accessed 25 December
2018] Scroll
Down ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** 2017 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, 20 April 2018 www.state.gov/reports/2017-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/bosnia-and-herzegovina/ [accessed 19
February 2020] C. TORTURE AND OTHER
CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT In 2016 the Council
of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) released a report
on its 2015 visit to detention facilities, prisons, and psychiatric establishments
in the country. The report cited a considerable number of allegations of
widespread police abuse of detainees in Sarajevo, Trebinje,
Banja Luka, Turski Lukavac,
and Bijeljina. The reported abuse of detainees
included slaps, punches, truncheon blows, prolonged handcuffing in stress
positions, mock executions, and use of a hand-held electro-shock device. The
report stated that the CPT delegation gained the impression from multiple
detainee interviews in Bijeljina and Sarajevo that
mistreatment (kicks, punches, and slaps) was a routine occurrence and almost
considered “normal” practice. In some instances, authorities allegedly abused
detainees in order to extort confessions. The CPT found that prosecutors and
judges routinely failed to take action regarding allegations of mistreatment. The CPT also noted
that it received several credible allegations of inmate physical mistreatment
(slaps, kicks, and punches to various parts of the body) by staff at Mostar
Prison. In one case, an inmate alleged that, in response to his repeated
banging on his cell door, prison officials handcuffed him behind his back
with his wrists hyperflexed, ankle-cuffed him with
a walking chain, and placed him empty cell for two days without food or the
opportunity to use sanitary facilities. The CPT reported that the findings
observed by its delegation’s doctor were compatible with the inmate’s
allegation. Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61640.htm [accessed 21 January
2013] 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61640.htm [accessed 3 July
2019] TORTURE
AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT – The law
prohibits such practices; however, physical mistreatment of prisoners by
police occurred. During the year
there were a number of citizen complaints in both entities alleging excessive
use of force during arrest. According to the European Union (EU) police
mission and the RS and Federation professional standards units (PSUs), the
number of complaints against police officers remained at approximately the
same level during the year as in 2004. Investigations and into police
misconduct and standards of accountability continued to improve during the
year (see section 1.d.). All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT
ARTICLES. Cite this
webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin, "Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance
& Other Ill Treatment in the early years of the 21st Century-
Bosnia-Herzegovina ", http://gvnet.com/torture/Bosnia-Herzegovina.htm,
[accessed <date>] |
