CAT/OP/KAZ/1/Add.1 Paragraph 102 The Subcommittee welcomes efforts to occupy detainees with meaningful activities and to create training and employment opportunities for prisoners, and recommends intensifying these efforts as there are more detainees who wish to work than jobs available. 198. Under article 121 of the Penalties Enforcement Code, one of the meaningful activities in which convicted prisoners engage is the task of developing the institution and improving the conditions of detention, for which they are not paid. Convicted prisoners engage in this activity for no more than two hours a week. 199. In addition, institutions have amateur artistic groups, which are run on a voluntary basis. These groups organize concerts, competitions, meetings and other events. 200. The aim of these meaningful activities is to foster positive personal relationships among convicted prisoners and to develop in them a sense of responsibility and the ability to display a selfless attitude towards society. 201. At present, 17,800 (60 per cent) of the 29,600 prisoners in institutions of the penal correction system are fit to work. 202. Of the convicted prisoners who are fit to work, 12,400 (69 per cent) have paid jobs. Paragraph 105 The Subcommittee is concerned about the excessively restrictive approach to contact with families. Recent amendments to the Criminal Execution Code exacerbated further already drastic restrictions on contact with the outside world. Therefore, the Subcommittee recommends that prisoners be allowed to maintain or establish such relations with persons or agencies outside the prison as may promote the prisoner’s rehabilitation. 203. Under article 86 (2), (7) and (8), of the Penalties Enforcement Code, convicted prisoners are entitled, at their own expense, to a telephone conversation with their spouse or a close relative in exceptional personal circumstances, including in the event that their spouse or a close relative dies or has a serious, life-threatening illness or that a natural disaster has caused significant financial damage to their family; and to a short visit of no more than seven days in duration, not including travel time to and from the place of the visit (no more than five days), in the event that their spouse or a close relative dies or has a serious, lifethreatening illness or that a natural disaster has caused significant financial damage to their family. 204. In accordance with article 109 of the Penalties Enforcement Code, convicted prisoners are each entitled to a telephone conversation of 15 minutes in duration, in accordance with the internal regulations of institutions. 205. Convicted prisoners or their spouse or close relatives pay for telephone conversations at their own expense. 206. The administration of an institution makes use of available means of telecommunication to maintain convicted prisoners’ social relationships. 207. Convicted prisoners held under the strict regime, in a disciplinary unit or in solitary confinement as a sanction have the right to a telephone conversation in exceptional personal circumstances, including in the event that their spouse or a close relative dies or has a serious, life-threatening illness or that a natural disaster has caused significant financial damage to their family. 208. In accordance with article 113 of the Penalties Enforcement Code, convicted prisoners held in institutions, as well as those placed in mixed-security institutions or transferred to full-security institutions to carry out maintenance work, are entitled to short periods of temporary release outside the institution of no longer than seven days in the event that their spouse or a close relative dies or has a serious, life-threatening illness or that a natural disaster has caused significant financial damage to their family; and, for those in a minimum-security institution, to extended temporary release for the period of annual paid leave. 24 GE.18-05420