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Ecuador: UN Torture Prevention Body to visit the country amid prison crisis
The UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT) will visit Ecuador from 25 September to 1 October 2022 in light of recent prison riots and violence. Rights experts from the SPT were alarmed by the ongoing violence within Ecuador’s prison system, which has led to the death of hundreds of inmates in recent years.
“Our primary focus of this visit will be around the ongoing prison crisis, as well as assessing how the authorities and the national preventive mechanism of Ecuador have implemented our recommendations after our first visit,” said Maria Luisa Romero, Head of the Delegation and member of the SPT.
The SPT first visited Ecuador in 2014 to advise and provide technical assistance to Ecuador’s national preventive mechanism (NPM), the country’s independent torture prevention watchdog.
“We look forward to working closely with the NPM during this visit,” she said, adding that, “we will formulate our new recommendations to the state and the NPM based on observations made during the mission, including visits to places of deprivation of liberty to observe conditions of detention.”
Ecuador ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT) in 2010.