Cambodia acceded to the Convention against (CAT) in 1992. Its criminal law, adopted in the same year, has succinctly criminalised torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of detainees and punishes any public agent who violates this right with one to five years in prison.
Torture and other forms of ill-treatment have declined since then, but they are still a practice against detainees, especially those in police custody. Police often rely on torture to extract confessions. According to a study, in the Municipal Court of Phnom Penh from October 2005 to September 2006, 17 percent of defendants claimed to have been tortured to make a confession, but the court did not take their claims seriously. Public agents have enjoyed impunity for the crimes of torture, except in mid-2006 when a number of police officers were sentenced to prison for the death of a woman in their custody.
Torture and other ill-treatment of detainees will continue despite the fact that Cambodia ratified the optional protocol to CAT, or OPCAT, early this year. The Cambodian government and Parliament have continued to condone these violent state-sanctioned crimes when they adopted the code of criminal procedure after that ratification. In this code, they have failed to guarantee and protect the rights of suspects in police custody to have access to the legal counsel of their choosing immediately from the time of their arrest, to have the presence of counsel during their interrogation by the police and not to incriminate themselves by ensuring their right to remain silent. Furthermore, suspects are denied the right to inform their family of their arrest and place of detention and to have their family visit them. They also are denied the right to undergo medical examinations while in police detention.
In the same code, the Cambodian government and Parliament have also failed to make it mandatory for prosecutors and investigating judges to examine the physical and psychological state of suspects or accused persons when the police bring these people before them and to act upon any suspicion of torture or other ill-treatment. Prosecutors are not given power to make regular visits to places of detention within their respective jurisdictions, and no rules and procedures are laid down for the questioning of suspects and the taking of statements.
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) urges the Cambodian government and Parliament to make up for their failures and end torture and other ill-treatment. They must adopt an additional law on the measures listed above that have been neglected in the new code. They must also honour their other obligations under CAT and OPCAT by enacting a law on the crimes of torture and other ill-treatment, including physical, mental or psychological and pharmacological torture, and a law on national preventive mechanisms as stipulated in OPCAT.
See also www.prevent-torture.net
