E/CN.4/2001/66/Add.2
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his staff to damage the image of the institution and the rehabilitation programme in which he was
engaged. In view of the number of consistent testimonies from detainees in different wings who
all said that sticks were to be found in the same place and that most of whom bore marks
consistent with their allegations, the Special Rapporteur made it clear that he considered this
explanation implausible. The Director finally recognized that he could “not justify the
unjustifiable”.
49.
The last wing he visited was wing G, where the most dangerous inmates from Carandiru
prison and those who were going to be transferred to other FEBEM institutions were said to be
detained. The Special Rapporteur noticed that there were mattresses in all the cells. Detainees
said that mattresses had been brought for the first time on that very day. According to the
detainees, they otherwise had to sleep half-naked with dirty blankets on cement beds. The
attention of the Special Rapporteur was also drawn to the fact that in at least one cell of this
wing, only literally boiling hot water was coming from the shower, making washing impossible.
It must be noted that in this wing, the overwhelming majority, if not all of the detainees had
visible and mostly recent marks over their entire bodies, including the head, consistent with
allegations of beatings with iron bars and wooden sticks. Several asked the Director in the
presence of the Special Rapporteur why they were beaten by monitores if they did not threaten or
attack them. The attacks by between 30 and 50 monitores, who most of the time allegedly have
their faces covered and are believed to be often drunk or drugged, were said to take place at night
and for no reason. Again, some detainees gave information to the Special Rapporteur regarding
the place where the sticks used to beat them were kept. The Special Rapporteur was thus able to
discover a number of sticks consistent with those described by detainees, hidden under a table
and covered with a sheet in the monitores’ room which, as confirmed by the Director, was only
accessible to monitores themselves.
50.
At the end of his visit, the Special Rapporteur met two minors he had seen the previous
day at the office of the public prosecutors for children and adolescent of the City of São Paulo.
According to the information received, when they were taken back to Franco da Rocha with
six other inmates who had been with them at the public prosecutors’ office, a number of
monitores, as well as some individuals they could not identify as monitores working in
Franco da Rocha, were waiting for them in the corridor. They were allegedly severely beaten
with iron bars and wooden sticks, punched and kicked. They were then reportedly forced to
take a cold shower, allegedly to make the marks disappear. During the night, it is alleged that
around 30 masked monitores, commonly referred by detainees as “ninjas”, came into their cells
and started to beat everybody indiscriminately with iron bars. Some were then reportedly taken
out of their cells to a small dark room for an hour and a half where, hands behind their heads,
they were allegedly threatened with being beaten again. At the time of the interview, recent
marks of beatings which had not been present the day before when the Special Rapporteur
met them at the public prosecutors’ office were visible on their bodies, in particular on the back.
Questioned by the Special Rapporteur about the marks, the monitores indicated that they had
certainly been self-inflicted by the detainees when they had learned that the Special Rapporteur
was currently visiting the institution. In view of the nature of the marks, in particular
haematomas, which clearly had not been self-inflicted during the previous couple of hours, the
Special Rapporteur was not convinced by this explanation.
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