and deportation centres and the regulations concerning the stay of foreigners in a
guarded centre and a deportation centre. According to the Commander, the main
purpose of such controls is to check the cleanness and order in rooms and other
facilities and to interview foreigners about living conditions in the Guarded Centre, as
well as their problems therewith.
Apart from that, the director of the security unit, in accordance with an arranged
plan (normally once a week), undertakes a detailed inspection of rooms and other
facilities where foreigners are staying. During such inspections, foreigners are subject
to personal control consisting in an external examination, checking clothes, underwear
and footwear. The abovementioned activities, in accordance with Article 11 of the
Regulations quoted above, are performed in a separate room, without the presence of
third parties and persons of an opposite sex.
Moreover, general unit officers were designated by the Head Officer to perform
weekly inspections of the rooms at the Guarded Centre for Foreigners to detect
damages or breakdowns, as well as equipment shortages. During such inspections, the
officers are supposed to pay particular attention to objects that can pose threat to order
or safety at the Guarded Centre or objects whose size or quantity may disturb the order
at the Guarded Centre. If such objects are found, they are transferred to the Guarded
Centre’s deposit.
Security unit officers on duty during briefing are obliged to inspect the state of
technical and safety measures, as well as rooms for foreigners. Apart from that, at
nighttime (between 10 pm and 6 am), wardens are obliged to control the behaviour of
inmates in rooms for foreigners, no less often than every two hours, at irregular
intervals. This compels another inspection of the rooms for foreigners. The fact of
performing such activities is recorded in a service log of the shift manager.
The Head also indicated that rooms for foreigners are sometimes preventively
inspected by security unit officers in case of a well-founded suspicion that foreigners
are in possession of dangerous or prohibited objects.
The National Preventive Mechanism has also received explanations concerning
the issue of using service dogs at these inspections, which provide that these are
incidental cases. According to Commander’s assurances, in 2010 only one such case
took place before the NPM visit:. three months after the bombing in Moscow. A group
of several Russian citizens of the Chechen nationality was staying in the Guarded
Centre at that time.
In the opinion of the National Preventive Mechanism, explanations concerning
inspections in the Guarded Centre in Krosno Odrzańskie only confirmed the remarks
of the visitors as regards too frequent controls of foreigners and their rooms, as the
situation indicates incessant inspections. It is a fact that Article 1 of the Regulations
concerning the stay of foreigners in a guarded centre and a deportation centre obliges
the director of a guarded centre to carry out inspections of the rooms for foreigners at
least once a week. However, this regulation does not limit these inspections to the
scope described by the Commander and cannot constitute the ground to justify further
inspections. It remains unclear which regulations are the basis for obliging wardens to
such frequent inspections of persons detained in rooms for foreigners, as described.
According to Article 11 of the Regulations, referred to by the Commander, a
foreigner is subject to strip search only in cases justified by security and order
requirements. It results though from the abovementioned description made by the
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