40 6. Condition and activities of the NPM per areas in 201676 In the several years long mandate of the Protector of Citizens, set forth by the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against torture76, in discharging the activities under the National Preventive Mechanism (NPM), the Protector of Citizens found that the prevention of torture and other forms of abuse and treatment of persons deprived of their liberty, has significantly improved in the Republic of Serbia. Following numerous visits to places where persons are or may be found deprived of liberty, the NPM concluded that there is no torture as an organized or encouraged phenomenon by state authorities in the Republic of Serbia. It is encouraging that over the past few years the civil servants who treat persons deprived of their liberty have become aware that torture is absolutely illegal. In this regard, there are numerous testimonies of randomly interviewed persons deprived of their liberty, especially in prisons, that they were not victims of torture. Nevertheless, this does not mean that there is no torture or other form of abuse in the Republic of Serbia. Individual cases of torture or abuse are always possible and expected to be occurring. The torture, as any other form of abuse, is of a situationrelated and the persons deprived of their liberty are therefore exposed to a higher risk for a continuing period. Other than that, individual cases of the treatment of persons deprived of their liberty have been identified as the result of deficiencies in the system and they represent the poor practice retained until today, deviating from the applicable standards, that might, considering the intensity and duration, might grow into, and in some cases they indeed do, a humiliating or inhuman behaviour and even the torture. Moreover, the systemic gaps in the organization and treatment of persons deprived of liberty, such as inadequate accommodation in some prisons, lack of or non-compliance with the procedures, lack of adequate psychological and social treatment, inappropriate health care and inadequate staffing might, particularly where persistent, adopt a character of an inhuman or humiliating behaviour. The NPM has pointed out that the institutions in which the persons deprived of liberty are placed, that were visited by the NPM team during the reporting period that were subsequently addressed with its recommendations, were highly cooperative and enabled the NPM to perform its assignment, as mandated by the established Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against torture (both announced and random visits to the detention centres were enabled, as well as the access to all the premises and installations, inspection of all the data including the interviews with all the prisoners, staff and any other persons selected by NPM). 76 Adopted on December 18th, 2002 at the 57th session of the General Assembly of the UN based on the Resolution A/ RES/57/199, entered into force on 22nd June 2006.