CCPR/C/118/D/2152/2012 State party’s observations on admissibility 4.1 On 17 August 2012, the State party submitted that the communication should be declared inadmissible as “insufficiently founded”, in accordance with article 5 of the Optional Protocol, because the author had failed to exhaust all available domestic remedies. The State party submitted that the Syktyvkar City Court had reviewed the author’s civil suit against the penitentiary and the Finance Department of the Republic of Komi and the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation for compensation of moral damages owing to the conditions of detention. On 29 May 2009, the City Court concluded that the conditions of detention “corresponded to the requirements of the legislation in force”. The State party further submitted that the author had appealed that decision before the Supreme Court of the Republic of Komi, which confirmed the decision on 24 September 2009, but that he had failed to appeal before the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. 4.2 The State party also submitted that the communication should be declared inadmissible because in 2010 the author had filed a complaint to the European Court for Human Rights, which was rejected on 21 May 2010, since the Court decided that the application did not correspond to the requirements of articles 34 and 35 of the European Convention on Human Rights. 4.3 The State party also maintained that the communication was ill-founded, since there was no evidence that the author had been subjected to physical violence or had attempted to commit suicide. It submitted that there were no reports by employees of the detention centre where he was held regarding any injuries sustained by him and there was no record in the medical journal of any requests by him for medical treatment. With respect to the author’s claim that his rights under article 10 (2) of the Covenant had been violated, the State party maintained that the author did not have the “status of unconvicted” since he had earlier been convicted under article 132 of the Criminal Code and therefore article 10 (2) of the Covenant was not applicable to him. Finally, the State party submitted that the author had failed to substantiate his allegations of discrimination under article 26 of the Covenant. Author’s submissions and comments on the State party’s observations on admissibility 5.1 On 3 September 2012, the author submitted that he had requested a medical examination with the aim of documenting a scar on his wrist. The administration of Penal Colony No. 49 refused to order the examination and to give him a written refusal. 5.2 The author submits that he has frequent nightmares and flashbacks regarding the torture endured. When seeing persons in uniforms he suffers from fear and he no longer believes in the law enforcement and justice systems. He also submits that when he tried to provide evidence to the court regarding his detention in the punishment cell and in the rubber cell, the administration of the detention centre presented the records for placement of detainees for 2007 instead of 2006 and the head of the centre gave inaccurate information. The conclusion of the investigation was based primarily on the testimony of employees of the detention centre, who denied any wrongdoing out of solidarity with colleagues and fear of being fired. The author reiterates that the conditions of his detention violated his rights under article 10 (1) of the Covenant and that he was a victim of discrimination in violation of article 26. He notes that in the punishment cell there was no natural light or ventilation and he had to sleep on a shelf adjacent to the toilet. In the corridor of the detention centre there was a loudspeaker which disturbed his sleep, because it was used to play the radio at an extremely loud volume in order to prevent conversations between cellmates. 5.3 The first regular cell in which he was kept with two other detainees was 2m x 5m in size; in the second there were only two beds, but three detainees. He was constantly 4