CAT/C/TJK/CO/3 Coerced confessions 25. The Committee is deeply concerned at allegations it has received that despite the fact that the State party’s legislation indicates that confessions obtained by torture are to be declared inadmissible as evidence of guilt, judges do not request such information and the State party’s courts do not implement this legislation in practice. The Committee regrets that the State party did not provide information requested on cases in which judges had acted on allegations by defendants concerning confessions compelled through torture (arts. 2, 15 and 16). 26. The Committee recommends that the State party: (a) Undertake a review of court cases in which defendants alleged that a confession presented as evidence of their guilt had been obtained through torture or other ill-treatment; (b) Take measures to encourage judges to suspend prosecutions in cases where a defendant makes such allegations and to declare confessions to be inadmissible as evidence of guilt in cases where it is established that they were compelled through torture; (c) Instruct procurators to act affirmatively in cases where defendants in criminal cases allege torture during judicial proceedings and to open investigations into the torture claims. Monitoring of places of deprivation of liberty 27. While noting that the State party has established a Monitoring Group to carry out visits to places of deprivation of liberty, the Committee is concerned at reports that the Monitoring Group does not have access to all places of detention in the State party, and that the Group has not been given access to specific detainees to follow up on complaints about torture or ill-treatment submitted to the Group by those detainees or their relatives. While appreciating that representatives of non-governmental organizations participate in the Monitoring Group, the Committee is concerned that non-governmental organizations are not permitted to monitor places of deprivation of liberty outside the context of the Monitoring Group. It is also concerned that the International Committee of the Red Cross does not have access to places of detention (arts. 2, 12, 13). 28. The State party should: (a) Ensure that the Monitoring Group can visit all places of detention, including pretrial facilities run by the State Committee for National Security, by the Agency on State Financial Control and the Fight against Organized Crime and by the Presidential Drug Control Agency; (b) Ensure that the Monitoring Group has the capacity to regularly visit all places of deprivation of liberty in the State party, including psychiatric and psychoneurological institutions, and that during these visits it is accompanied by medical experts, including psychiatrists; (c) Ensure that members of the Monitoring Group are able to speak confidentially with any detainee in any place of detention that it visits; (d) Allow non-governmental organizations to undertake visits to all places of deprivation of liberty outside the context of the Monitoring Group; (e) Provide the International Committee of the Red Cross with access to places of detention in the State party; (f) Ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and establish a national preventive mechanism in accordance with the Optional Protocol. Non-refoulement 29. While welcoming the information provided by the State party on extraditions carried out by its authorities since 2012 and noting the 2014 amendments to the Code of Criminal 7