8 Foreword by the Greek Ombudsman T he Optional Protocol to the UN Convention “Against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” provided for the establishment of a system of monitoring -by international and independent national bodies- of conditions in a state of deprivation of liberty in order to avoid acts of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment degrading treatment or punishment. Its ratification by the national assembly in 2014 created new challenges and increased the responsibilities for the Ombudsman: The Independent Authority, having years of experience and extended expertise in the protection of fundamental human rights, assumed the role of the National Prevention Mechanism foreseen in Protocol, the independent, that is, national body for monitoring the conditions in conditions of deprivation of liberty. Throughout 2017, significant progress has been made in ensuring the basic prerequisites for the effective implementation of the Ombudsman's mission as a National Prevention Mechanism: Both the human as well as the financial resources of the Mechanism have been upgraded, thus allowing, for the first time, for the development and implementation of an integrated strategic planning and programming. At the same time, international collaborations were intensified, with a view to promoting the exchange of best practices and know-how in conducting inspections in places of detention. Indeed, in 2017, the Ombudsman's National Prevention Mechanism put in place a plan of mapping detention facilities throughout the country, setting out the conditions in all areas of deprivation of liberty falling within its sphere of competence. Systematic visits and inspections took place in prisons, police and coast guard detention facilities, detention centers for third country nationals pending deportation, inpatient hospitals, welfare institutions throughout the country. The key findings of the work of the team of special investigators of the Ombudsman that took over the implementation of the Authority's specific competence as a Preventive Mechanism are set out in this report. It is expected that a full mapping will be completed by 2018, so that the Prevention Mechanism will henceforth enter into a new phase of operation -alongside the regular overview of all detention facilities; that of more targeted and systematic monitoring of detention conditions, with particular emphasis and insistence on places where initial registries and indications highlighted the most problematic findings.