UN mission decries poor conditions of detention

Conditions of detention in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are such that a prison term of one to five years is tantamount to a death sentence, according to the Human Rights Section of the UN Mission in the DRC, known as MONUC.

In a 44-page report titled "Rapport sur la detention en RDC avril 2004", made available to IRIN on Thursday, the human rights section denounced as unacceptable the conditions of detention.

The section reported that torture and other forms of degrading treatment were frequent in jails and that the situation could be worse "in some inaccessible locations outside official control". There were also underground jails with inhumane conditions, it added.

Acute lack of food, poor health care and unhygienic conditions had, it said, turned detention facilities into morgues. In addition, it said, the fundamental rights of detainees were abused. Among these are the right to be released if charges are not brought within 48 hours of arrest, the right for detainees to be informed within 24 hours the reason for their arrest, and the right to a fair trial within the legal time limits.

As a result of these violations, it said, there existed "prolonged periods" of preventive detention.

Given these situations; the rights section recommended that prison authorities and the judiciary create a prison monitoring body; formulate measures to stamp out illegal detention; reduce the number of people held in preventive detention and limit its duration; improve the penal system and condition of detention; give protection to minors and women in jail; and rehabilitate prisons.

Some of these measures "cost little or nothing", the rights section said. Implementation was possible immediately or in the short term, it said. Other measures were more costly and slower to implement, therefore it appealed to the international community to support judicial reforms.