8 CPT: 12TH GENERAL REPORT ACTIVITIES IN 2001 Visits 1. The CPT organised seventeen visits totalling 162 days during 2001. This represents only a slight increase in visit days as compared to 2000, a situation largely explained by the last-minute cancellation, on security grounds, of a visit planned towards the end of 2001 to the North Caucasian region of the Russian Federation (that visit finally took place in January/February 2002). A list of the countries and places of detention visited by CPT delegations in 2001 is set out in Appendix 5. 2. The CPT carried out 10 periodic visits: to Belgium, Georgia, Greece, Malta, Moldova, Russia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom. This was the first time that the CPT had visited Georgia. The Russian Federation received its third periodic visit within three years, the CPT’s delegation focussing its attention on the Far East. As had been the case in 2000, particular attention was paid to the treatment of immigration detainees during many of the periodic visits in 2001. In two countries (Belgium and Switzerland), the CPT’s delegation examined in depth the procedures and means of restraint applied during the expulsion of foreign nationals. Further, the treatment of young persons deprived of their liberty and the situation in military detention facilities often figured in visiting programmes. 3. The traditional programme of routine, periodic, visits is increasingly being counterbalanced by targeted ad hoc visits addressing particularly sensitive issues. Seven ad hoc visits were organised in 2001, to Albania, Romania, the North Caucasian region of the Russian Federation, Spain, the “former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” and Turkey (two visits). 4. The visit to Albania was of a follow-up nature, aimed at examining the implementation in practice of recommendations made after the December 2000 periodic visit concerning the treatment of persons deprived of their liberty by law enforcement agencies and the situation at Vlora Psychiatric Hospital. 5. In the course of the visit to Romania, the CPT’s delegation examined the situation of children placed by public authorities in centres run by the National Authority for Child Protection and Adoption and by the State Secretariat for Handicapped Persons. The CPT had for some time been receiving alarming reports about conditions in such centres. Three placement centres were visited, in the Constanta and Vaslui regions. 6. The visit to the North Caucasian region in March 2001 was the CPT’s third to that part of the Russian Federation since the outbreak of the current conflict in the Chechen Republic. The CPT’s findings during the March 2001 visit, as well as the facts found in the course of its earlier visits, remain confidential, the Russian authorities not having authorised the publication of the Committee’s visit reports. However, on 10 July 2001, the CPT decided to resort to Article 10, paragraph 2, of the Convention and make a public statement concerning the Chechen Republic (cf. Appendix 6A). This was the third time since its establishment in November 1989 that the CPT had used its power to make a public statement. The public statement was prompted by the Russian authorities’ failure to cooperate with the CPT in relation to two issues: i) the carrying out of a thorough and independent inquiry into events in a detention facility at Chernokozovo during the period December 1999 to early February 2000; ii) action taken to uncover and prosecute cases of ill-treatment of persons deprived of their liberty in the Chechen Republic in the course of the current conflict. The CPT is grateful for the very supportive declaration issued by the Committee of Ministers’ Chairperson a week later, on 18 July 2001 (cf. Appendix 6B). The CPT emphasised at the end of the public statement that it remained fully committed to pursuing its dialogue with the Russian authorities on matters related to the Chechen Republic, and in subsequent contacts the Russian authorities have stressed that they share this sentiment. The CPT’s activities in relation to Chechnya continue unabated; representatives of the Committee had high-level talks in Moscow on this subject with Russian officials in November 2001, and two further visits by the Committee to the Chechen Republic have already been organised in 2002.