5 1. Introduction 1.1. General assessment of prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatments and punishments in the Republic of Serbia 1 In the course of discharging of its mandate set under the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against torture2, National Prevention Mechanism (NPM) found that status of persons deprived of their liberty was improved and that there is no torture as an organized and stimulating phenomenon by state authorities. Despite the fact that the aforementioned is encouraging, the competent authorities should strive towards improving the fight against torture, taking into account that the torture is of situational character, as well as any other ill-treatment, and the fact that those deprived of their liberty are the persons most exposed to that risk. In the course of the reporting period certain progresses were observed when it comes to torture prevention. Throughout the previous years, when visiting prisons, particularly visits conducted to the closed prisons, a large number of interviewed persons deprived of their liberty stressed that ill-treatment is almost a “common phenomenon”. However, in the course of unannounced visits to the penitentiary institutions (Penal Correctional Institution /PCI/ Požarevac – Zabela, PCI Niš, District Prison /DP/ Leskovac and DP Belgrade) paid in the course of 2015, NPM representatives conducted unsupervised conversations with more than 200 persons deprived of their liberty, without presence of any prison staff, in the course of which not a single person mentioned that he/she had been physically ill-treated by officers or other convicts, i.e. inmates3. Likewise, no one had any visible injuries. From the aforementioned, a general assessment that there is no torture in Serbia cannot be made, but what encourages is the fact that possible individual torture and other ill-treatment cases do not constitute any systemic phenomenon. Several prisoners, who were, before being committed to prison, detained for 48 hours in the police detention, mentioned that they were “slapped several times” in the course of hearing, and that police inspectors insulted them, but they did not have any possibility to prove that, since they were not inflicted any visible injuries. It would be therefore, for the sake of further prevention of torture and implementation of more efficient fight against impunity of torture in the police station, necessary to ensure special premises for hearings, which should be audio and visually recorded, and the application of police authorities should also be recorded. A positive step forward is the established practice of the Public Prosecutor’s Office to ask people that are brought before them how the police officers treated them, i.e. whether they were subject to any kind of torture or degrading treatment. Regarding the fight against impunity for torture, the attitude of the Committee for the Oversight of Security Services of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia that the Protector of Citizens is not authorized to act in the cases already being subject to criminal prosecution is indicative. The mentioned has seriously put the prevention against torture and fight against impunity for torture under a threat and it represents an attempt to discredit and For more details, see the Section 6 of this Report. 2 Adopted on December 18, 2002 at the 57th session of the General Assembly of the UN in line with the Resolution A/RES/57/199, entered into force of June 22, 2006 3 All terms, notions, nouns, adjectives and verbs in this Report used in the masculine gender, refer with no discrimination to the persons of feminine gender 1