D. Subjects of concern 34. The Committee expresses its concern at the following: (a) The many allegations of torture and ill-treatment committed in a widespread and habitual manner by the State’s security forces and agencies, both in the provinces and in the federal capital; (b) The lack of proportion between the high number of reports of torture and ill-treatment and the very small number of convictions for such offences, as well as the unjustifiable delays in the investigation of cases of torture, all of which contribute to the prevailing impunity in this area; (c) The repeated practice of miscategorization of actions by judicial officials, who treat the crime of torture as a minor offence (such as unlawful coercion), which carries a lesser punishment, when in fact such actions should be categorized as torture; (d) The uneven application of the Convention in the various provinces of the State party, and the lack of machinery for accommodating the requirements of the Convention to the federal structure of the country, despite the fact that the State party’s Constitution grants those provisions the same status as the Constitution itself; (e) The information supplied by the State party on compliance with the obligations imposed by the Convention still fails to reflect the situation in the country as a whole, as the Committee has stated when considering previous reports by the State party. The Committee also notes with concern that the national register of information from domestic courts on cases of torture and ill-treatment in the State party has still not been established; (f) The reports of arrests and detention of children below the age of criminal responsibility, most of them “street children” and beggars, in police stations, where they are held together with adults, as well as on the alleged torture and ill-treatment suffered by such children, leading to death in some cases; (g) Allegations of torture and ill-treatment of certain other vulnerable groups, such as members of the indigenous communities, sexual minorities and women; (h) The overcrowding and poor physical conditions prevailing in the prisons, and particularly the lack of hygiene, adequate food and appropriate medical care, which may be tantamount to inhuman and degrading treatment; (i) The high number of persons being held in pre-trial detention, which according to the State party is as high as 78 per cent in the Buenos Aires prison system; (j) The failure to apply the principle of separation between convicted prisoners and remand prisoners in detention centres, and between them and immigrants who have been served with expulsion orders; (k) Alleged reprisals, intimidation and threats received by persons reporting acts of torture and ill-treatment; 13

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