CPT: 17TH GENERAL REPORT 6. The ad hoc visit to Hungary in January/February 2007 focussed on the Special Regime Unit for prisoners serving lengthy sentences (HSR Unit) recently set up at Szeged Prison. The CPT had previously expressed concern about plans to open a special unit for “actual lifers” (i.e. prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment who cannot be released, except on compassionate grounds by pardon), stressing that it could see no justification for keeping “actual lifers” apart from other prisoners serving lengthy prison terms. During the ad hoc visit, the CPT’s delegation examined the extent to which its concern had been met by the HSR Unit. In this context, the CPT must also make clear that it has serious reservations about the very concept according to which certain prisoners can be considered at the time of their sentencing to constitute a permanent threat to society and hence be deprived of any hope of ever being released. To take such a once-and-for-all decision is a fundamentally unsound approach. No one can reasonably argue at a given point in time that a particular person will always remain dangerous to society. 7. The CPT organised its first visit to Kosovo in March 2007. An agreement had already been signed in August 2004 between the Council of Europe and the United Nations Interim Administration in Kosovo (UNMIK), guaranteeing access for the CPT to places where persons were detained under the authority of UNMIK. However, the commencement of the Committee’s activities in Kosovo was also dependent on the existence of arrangements guaranteeing access to detention facilities operated by the “international security presence in Kosovo” (KFOR); these arrangements were finally concluded in July 2006. The CPT’s delegation examined the treatment and conditions of detention of persons held in a variety of establishments throughout Kosovo, including police stations, prisons, psychiatric facilities and social welfare institutions. It also visited the detention facilities at the United States military base “Camp Bondsteel”, where persons may be detained under the authority of KFOR. 7 8. In September 2006, the CPT organised its ninth ad hoc visit to the North Caucasian region of the Russian Federation. It was very much a follow-up to the Committee's eighth visit to that region in April/May of the same year, and focused on the Chechen Republic. The disturbing findings made during these visits combined with an absence of effective remedial action by the Russian authorities led the CPT to issue a public statement on 13 March 2007 (see Appendix 9), its third to date concerning the Chechen Republic. Progress has undoubtedly been made in recent years in the Chechen Republic as regards material conditions of detention, and it should be noted that no allegations were received of ill-treatment of prisoners by staff of the penitentiary establishments visited in 2006. However, the CPT's delegation found that resort to torture and other forms of ill-treatment by members of the law enforcement agencies and security forces in the Chechen Republic continued, as did the related practice of unlawful detentions. Further, from the information gathered during the September 2006 visit, it was clear that investigations into cases involving allegations of ill-treatment were rarely carried out in an effective manner. The CPT has been raising these very serious issues related to the Chechen Republic for a number of years. Once it became apparent that the Russian authorities had still not taken decisive measures to address them, the Committee felt that it had no option but to make a public statement. 9. The CPT’s ad hoc visit to Spain in January 2007 was triggered by reports received towards the end of 2006 concerning José Ignacio De Juana Chaos, a prisoner on hunger strike. According to those reports, this prisoner was being fed against his will by nasogastric tube. The Spanish authorities subsequently confirmed that the prisoner had been transferred to the Doce de Octubre Hospital in Madrid on 24 November 2006 and was being artificially fed, following an authorisation given by the Central Court of Instruction No. 2 of the Audiencia Nacional. The CPT’s delegation examined the modalities of care and custody of this prisoner at the Doce de Octubre Hospital. In the course of the visit, the delegation interviewed the prisoner and held consultations with both the medical team responsible for managing the hunger strike and the competent judicial authorities.