A/HRC/22/53/Add.1 Government provided its comments, which the Special Rapporteur took into consideration before finalizing his report. II. Legal framework A. At the international level 7. Tajikistan is a party to the main United Nations human rights treaties prohibiting torture and ill-treatment, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Optional Protocol thereto, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. The State is also a signatory to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Tajikistan has been a party to the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the Protocol thereto since 1994. B. At the regional level 8. Tajikistan has concluded more than 10 bilateral human rights agreements within the framework of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). As a participating State in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), it has made a number of commitments with regard to the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, freedom from arbitrary arrest or detention, and the right to a fair trial. Tajikistan is also a party to the CIS Convention on Legal Aid and Legal Relations in Civil, Family and Criminal Cases and is a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Collective Security Treaty Organization. C. 1. At the national level Constitutional and legislative provisions 9. Article 18 of the Constitution states that no one may be subjected to torture or cruel or inhuman treatment. Under article 10 (2) of the 2010 Code of Criminal Procedure, “no party to criminal proceedings may be subjected to violence, torture or other cruel or such treatment that degrades human dignity”. 10. Until the introduction in the Criminal Code of a separate article 143-1 on torture in March 2012, crimes of torture were treated as “torture” (art. 117), “abuse of authority” (art. 314), “excess of official powers” (art. 316, part 3) or “forced confession by torture” (art. 354, part 2). If the lesser offences were applied, any penalties were subject to minor sanctions, reduction of sentences or amnesty. 11. Article 143-1 defines torture as the “intentional infliction of physical and/or mental suffering committed by a person conducting an inquiry or pretrial investigation, or any other officials or with their instigation or with the acquiescence or with their knowledge of another person with the purpose to obtain from the tortured or a third person an information or a confession, or punish him/her for the committed or suspected acts or intimidating or coercing him/her or a third party and for any other reasons based on discrimination of any kind”. 12. Article 143-1 envisages, in addition to penalties, deprivation of the right to occupy certain positions or to engage in certain activities, imprisonment for a period of two to five years when the crime has been committed for the first time. Part 2 of article 143-1 provides 4