CAT/OP/BRA/3 31. The Subcommittee requests the State party to provide information concerning the procedural safeguards designed to encourage victims of violence to report abuse during custody hearings. The Subcommittee recalls the fundamental rights of all persons deprived of their liberty to promptly receive independent legal and medical assistance, to contact relatives and to be informed of their rights.4 The Subcommittee recommends that the State party implement procedural requirements protecting detainees’ right to speak privately and confidentially with counsel, in the absence of police agents. It further recommends that all State actors involved in custody hearings (judges, public prosecutors, public defenders, police officers and officers of the court) receive training enabling them to identify signs of torture and ill-treatment and conduct relevant follow-up. Such training should emphasize the duty of judges to be vigilant in detecting signs of torture and ill-treatment and to ask questions regarding the treatment detainees received when apprehended and while in police custody. 32. The Subcommittee also recommends that the public authorities involved in custody hearings (courts, public defenders’ office, forensic medical institutes) be given sufficient resources, so as to allow each case to be handled with due diligence. B. Treatment and torture in detention facilities 33. The Subcommittee observed that detainees are often deterred from complaining about torture and ill-treatment out of fear of reprisals. The Subcommittee found that there was a general atmosphere of intimidation and repression in the places of detention it visited. In several prisons, the Subcommittee received allegations that inmates are routinely taken by other inmates to designated cells and areas where they are subjected to torture. In a number of facilities, inmates were transferred to isolation areas because of threats they had received from other inmates, including members of criminal gangs openly exerting significant control within the prisons. 34. In some facilities in the State of Rio de Janeiro, the Subcommittee received compelling accounts of physical violence (kicks and punches in the face, hitting) and serious verbal threats by officials responsible for maintaining security. Detainees in that facility expressed a strong fear that they would be further attacked for reporting illtreatment. The Subcommittee also received recent information that several inmates had been taken hostage in a prison in the State of Paraná. The Subcommittee is also concerned at documented instances of violent acts by inmates directed at visiting family members and prison staff, including medical personnel and wardens. The Subcommittee also notes with concern that in several of the facilities it visited, pretrial detainees were housed in the same cells as convicted offenders. 35. Having examined relevant records in most of the detention facilities that it visited, the Subcommittee is deeply concerned at the lack of a consistent effort to document and investigate allegations of torture and deaths occurring in prisons. The Subcommittee welcomes the State party’s efforts to collect and publish detailed statistics concerning violent deaths in places of deprivation of liberty. However, these alarming statistics indicate a strong need for rigorous investigation procedures in compliance with articles 12 and 13 of the Convention. According to the report of the National Penitentiary Department and the Ministry of Justice, the rate of intentional killings in Brazil was six times greater in 2014 than in 2013, and about half of the 565 individuals who died while deprived of liberty in 2014 were intentionally killed.5 Accountability for these acts requires thorough collection 4 5 See Committee against Torture, general comment No. 2 (2008) on the implementation of article 2, para. 13. See www.cnj.jus.br/files/conteudo/arquivo/2015/11/080f04f01d5b0efebfbcf06d050dca34.pdf. 9