§ Mr. GillTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to his answer of 6 December 1999,Official Report, column 406W, on the use of torture in OSCE participating countries, if he will list the parts of the OSCE region in which instances of abuse persist. [102321]
§ Mr. VazAs noted in my previous answer to the hon. Gentleman, instances of torture can occur even in countries with strong human rights protections. While in some countries there are effective mechanisms for the reporting and investigation of such abuse, in others there are not. It is not, therefore, possible to give an accurate and comprehensive list of countries where instances of torture persist.
At the OSCE Review Conference in Istanbul reports of torture in various countries in the OSCE region, especially the Central Asian republics, were raised. Several states, including Turkey, Russia and the United States of America, also acknowledged that their own systems were not perfect and outlined measures they were taking to strengthen protection of the human rights of detainees.