Provision of meals during the period of participation of suspected and accused persons in investigations and
court hearings
In the course of the monitoring, the issues of enforcement of the right of accused and suspected persons to free
meals during the period of their participation in investigations and court hearings were separately studied.
In the course of the monitoring of the Sokuluk District IAB TDF, the observers revealed a fact that appears to
have occurred in other TDFs of the country, too. Prisoners, who were convoyed under guard on the day of the
monitoring, did not have time for lunch, because food was brought to the TDF at 3 P.M. Hence, they had had
the last hot meal the day before and would have the next one only the following day.
Also, the monitoring revealed that if a person is brought to a TDF after lunch, he is left without hot meal and
often is left hungry till the lunch time of the following day.
As it is obvious that the standards for timely provision of detainees with meals are not complied with, the
management of IABs and administrations of TDFs should take necessary steps to eliminate violation of this
prisoners’ right.
Caloric Content of Food
Having analyzed the quantity and quality of food provided to the IAB TDFs for its compliance with the standards
of daily calories, the following conclusions were made.
The caloric content of food for an adult male between 18 and 40 years of age, not engaged in physical labor or
sports, should be 2,800-3,000 kcal/day, for women with the same criteria - 2,400-2,600 kcal/day. The caloric
content of, for example, one serving of borscht is 49 kcal, pea soup - 54 kcal, cereal milk - 112 kcal.
Thus, getting the first course (for example, according to the prisoners, the day before the monitoring they were
given pea soup for lunch and tea and bread for breakfast and dinner), the person receives from 50 to 200 kcal
per day, which is 7.4 % of the established daily requirement. 109
In the same TDFs, where, in addition to the hot meal for lunch the prisoners are given only boiled water for
breakfast and dinner, without bread, the prisoners get even fewer calories.
The UN Human Rights Committee already has precedents when dreary and insufficient nutrition of prisoners
was found a violation of Art. 10 of ICCPR where by all persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with
humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person. The case of Bachriniso Sharipova and
others v. Tajikistan can be provided as an example.110
Access to Drinking Water
The observers placed high emphasis to the issues of ensuring regular access to drinking water for IAB TDF
detainees.
The monitoring revealed cells of 40 TDFs (85.1%) are not equipped with taps with running water. Taps are
fixed in the cells of only 7 (14.9%) TDFs.
The law requires that the cells must have small tanks with drinking water.
According to the observations, 50% of the TDFs lacking taps with running water do not even have small tanks
with drinking water.
109
The calculation was made based on the average daily standard for caloric content of food – 2,700 kcal/day, and the maximum quantity of calories a
detainee gets per day – 200 kcal/day.
110
The decision of the UN Human Rights Committee under the case of Bakhriniso Sharipova and others v. Tajikistan of 1 April 2008. CCPR/C/92/
D/1209, 1231/2003&1241/2004.
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