Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance & Other Ill Treatment In the early years of the 21st Century, 2000 to
2025 gvnet.com/torture/Poland.htm
|
|||||||||||
|
CAUTION: The following links
have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Poland. 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: Poland 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/poland/
[accessed 3 August
2021] TORTURE AND OTHER
CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT On February 19, the
Wroclaw District Court upheld the conviction of four former police officers
who were found guilty of abuse of power and physical and psychological
violence against a 25-year-old man who died in police custody in Wroclaw in
2016. Video footage showed police beating and using an electroshock device on
the man while he was handcuffed in a jail cell. One defendant was sentenced
to two and a half years in prison, and the others received two-year
sentences. In addition, the court ruled the defendants could not work as
police officers for eight and six years, respectively. On September 9, the
National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) operating under the office of the commissioner
for human rights (ombudsperson) published a report on police action against a
group of demonstrators who held a spontaneous gathering on August 7,
following the detention of an activist associated with the lesbian, gay,
bisexual, transgender, or intersex community. The report
described the treatment of detainees by police as “degrading” and in some
cases “inhuman” (see section 6, Acts of Violence, Criminalization, and
Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity). Council of Europe
anti-torture Committee publishes report on the ad hoc visit to Poland European Committee
for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment CPT, Executive Summary, 28 October 2020 The Report - www.coe.int/en/web/cpt/-/council-of-europe-anti-torture-committee-publishes-report-on-the-ad-hoc-visit-to-poland [accessed 28 October
2020] The absolute
absence of progress as regards the fundamental safeguards against
ill-treatment advocated by the CPT, namely the right of access to a lawyer
and to a doctor, the right to notify one's detention to a third party and the
right to be informed of the above-mentioned rights, is the source of the
Committee’s deepest concern after the 2019 ad hoc visit to Poland. It is the
CPT’s view that serious deficiencies observed once again by its delegation
have a persisting and systemic character, which appear
in an even more negative light when set against the ongoing phenomenon of
ill-treatment of persons in police custody. Council of Europe
anti-torture Committee publishes report on Poland European Committee
for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment CPT, Executive Summary, 25 July 2018 www.coe.int/en/web/cpt/-/council-of-europe-anti-torture-committee-publishes-report-on-pola-1 The Report - rm.coe.int/16808c7a91 [accessed 2 June
2020] 15. The great majority
of persons interviewed by the delegation, who were or had recently been in
police custody, stated that they had been treated by the police in a correct
manner. However, the delegation did hear a number of allegations of physical
ill-treatment. Most of
these allegations referred
to excessive use of
force at the time
of apprehension
(consisting of slaps,
punches, kicks, truncheon
blows, using an electric
discharge weapon and applying
handcuffs too tightly) in respect of persons who were reportedly already
under control and who did not
resist (or no
longer resisted) arrest. A
few allegations were
also heard concerning physical ill-treatment(mainly punches
and kicks) in the
course of questioning, including
two allegations of ill-treatment of such a severity that they could be
considered as amounting to torture i.e. asphyxiation using a plastic bag
placed over a person’s head and administering truncheon blows on the
soles of the
feet. In one
of these cases(see
paragraph 17below), the alleged
victim had reportedly
officially complained about his treatment to the relevant authorities.
Further, several persons alleged that they had been threatened and/or
verbally abused while in police custody. Freedom House
Country Report 2018 Edition freedomhouse.org/country/poland/freedom-world/2018 [accessed 13 May
2020] IS THERE AN
INDEPENDENT JUDICIARY?
- Since taking power in 2015, the PiS government
has moved aggressively to assert control over the judiciary. One of its first
steps was to pass legislation designed to curb the powers of the TK, and it
subsequently refused to publish TK decisions that it considered invalid. By
the end of 2016, after a lengthy dispute over the tribunal’s membership and
authority, the TK was dominated by progovernment
judges. In its March 2017 ruling on the law on public gatherings, the
15-member TK excluded three judges based on a complaint from the justice
minister, and a fourth was sent on compulsory leave, allowing the law to win
approval with a seven-to-four vote. In July, the
parliament adopted three sweeping government-backed judicial reform laws.
President Duda signed one of them, granting the
justice minister the power to appoint and dismiss the presidents and deputy
presidents of district, regional, and appellate courts; the justice minister
used this authority in November, removing 10 court officials in southern
Poland. SCORE CHANGE: The score declined
from 2 to 1 due to legal changes that dramatically increased elected
officials’ influence over the Supreme Court, the National Council of the
Judiciary, and lower courts across the country. DOES DUE PROCESS
PREVAIL IN CIVIL AND CRIMINAL MATTERS? - Defendants generally enjoy due process
protections in Poland, though the law allows for extended pretrial detention,
which can be lengthy in practice, and there is a large backlog of cases. Conclusions and
recommendations of the Committee against Torture U.N. Convention
against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment -- Doc. A/55/44, paras.
82-95 (2000) www1.umn.edu/humanrts/cat/observations/poland2000.html [accessed 5 March
2013] 3. Principal
subjects of concern 90. The Committee
notes that, in spite of the efforts of the State party, some drastic acts of
aggressive behaviour by police officers continue to occur, which has resulted
in death in some instances. Search … AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL For more
articles:: Search Amnesty
International’s website www.amnesty.org/en/search/?q=poland+torture&ref=&year=&lang=en&adv=1&sort=relevance [accessed 10 January 2019] Scroll
Down ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61668.htm [accessed 11
February 2013] 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61668.htm [accessed 4 July
2019] TORTURE
AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT – The law
prohibits such practices, and there were no reports that government officials
employed them. Freedom House
Country Report - Political Rights: 1 Civil Liberties: 1 Status: Free 2009 Edition www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2009/poland [accessed 11
February 2013] LONG
URL ç 2009 Country Reports begin on Page 21 [accessed 13 May
2020] Poland has an
independent judiciary, but courts are notorious for delays in administering
cases. State prosecutors have proceeded slowly on corruption investigations,
contributing to concerns that they are subject to considerable political
pressure. A November 2007 report by the International Bar Association’s Human
Rights Institute faulted several recently passed and proposed legislative
amendments introduced by the PiS government;
however, since Tusk’s election, the proposed amendments stalled. Prison
conditions are fairly poor by European standards, and pretrial detention
periods can be lengthy. 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-
Poland", http://gvnet.com/torture/Poland.htm, [accessed <date>] |
