CCPR/C/125/D/2448/2014 permitted to visit him,1 they could see that his face was swollen. They officially lodged with the authorities a complaint of ill-treatment,2 which yielded no results. 2.6 On 12 April 2012, Dashoguz City Court convicted the second author for distribution of pornography and sentenced him to four years’ imprisonment. On 1 May 2012, Dashoguz Regional Court dismissed the second author’s appeal without hearing his testimony or any witnesses. The second author was not authorized to attend the appeal hearing. On 24 May 2012, the Supreme Court dismissed the second author’s supervisory appeal. On 9 October 2012, the Supreme Court rejected his supervisory appeal to the Presidium of the Supreme Court. At the time that the present communication was submitted, the second author was serving his sentence at the LBK-12 prison colony. 2.7 On 26 January 2015, the authors’ counsel provided an update to the Committee, notifying that on 22 October 2014 the President of Turkmenistan had amnestied eight Jehovah’s Witnesses, among whom was the second author, who, according to counsel, had been condemned and imprisoned on the basis of fabricated charges. When he was released, he had served 31.5 months of his 48-month sentence. However, the amnesty did not exonerate the second author of his criminal conviction, nor did it expunge his criminal record or offer reparation. The complaint 3.1 The authors claim that the State party has violated their rights under article 14 (1), (3) (d) and (e) and (5) of the Covenant, as they were denied a fair trial, that is, they were tried in the absence of a lawyer, and their rights to have witnesses cross-examined, and to have their convictions reviewed by a higher court, were violated. 3.2 They also claim to be victims of a violation of article 18 read in conjunction with article 26 of the Covenant, as they allege that the pornography charges brought against them were fabricated by the police in order to convict them because of their religion. They recall that Jehovah’s Witnesses are regularly subjected to various forms of intimidation and punishment by the authorities of the State party and that this religious organization was denied permission to be registered officially in Turkmenistan. 3.3 In addition, the second author claims that the repeated beatings and the threats he was subjected to during his detention at the Dashoguz remand centre constituted a violation of article 7 of the Covenant. He also considers that the inhuman conditions of his detention at the LBK-12 prison colony – the country’s largest in terms of size and prison population, known for its overcrowdedness, harsh climatic conditions, scarce supplies of food, medication and personal hygiene products, and for tuberculosis, skin diseases, its very high mortality rate, and physical abuse – constitute a violation of article 7 of the Covenant. State party’s observations on the merits 4.1 On 16 November 2015, the State party submitted its observations on the merits of the communication. The State party asserts that both authors were found guilty of committing the crime specified in article 164 (preparation or distribution of pornographic material) of the Criminal Code and each one was sentenced to four years of deprivation of liberty. 4.2 The State party argues that it is evident from the case materials that the two authors each independently obtained pornographic movies with the intention of showing, distributing and selling them. Their guilt was established by the totality of the evidence examined in court (witness testimonies, CD-R compact discs with video recordings of pornographic movies admitted as physical evidence, and other case materials). 4.3 The State party adds that the penalties imposed on them, which take into account the mitigating and aggravating circumstances of the cases, are within the sanctions permitted by the law. 1 2 The date was not provided by the authors. No further information. 3