PART B: Substantive Norms on Torture in the African Regional Human Rights System inhuman and degrading conditions’ without contact with the outside world was cruel, inhuman and degrading.210 Similarly, imprisonment for ten months in a cell that was constantly lit by a 250-watt bulb was also held to constitute inhuman and degrading treatment.211 In Media Rights Agenda v. Nigeria, the victim allegedly suffered: [h]is legs and hands [were] chained to the floor day and night. From the day he was arrested and detained until he was sentenced by the tribunal, a total of 147 days, he was not allowed to take his bath. He was given food twice a day, and while in detention, both in Lagos and Jos before he faced the Special Investigation Panel that preceded the trial at the Special Military Tribunal, he was kept in solitary confinement in a cell meant for criminals.212 In this case, the Commission found this treatment to constitute ‘a violation of the right to respect and dignity and the right to freedom from inhuman or degrading treatment under Article 5 of the Charter’.213 In Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa v. Angola, the Commission held that detaining people in facilities that had previously been used to house animals and which had not been cleaned, as well as forcing detainees to sleep in close proximity of inadequate toilet facilities, ‘cannot be called anything but degrading and inhuman’, and therefore in breach of Article 5 of the Charter.214 As for the basic conditions to ensure life, the following circumstances have been found to violate Article 5: insufficient food, poor quality of food and denial or unavailability of medical attention.215 As the Commission’s case law demonstrates, these elements often overlap. In the Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr. case, acts found to be in violation of Article 5 of the Charter included keeping detainees in leg irons, manacles and handcuffs and subjecting them to beatings in their cells. Some of the detainees in this case were chained to the cell walls. The cells were described as ‘airless and dirty’, and the detainees were denied medical attention. There was no evidence of any violent action by the detainees or attempt on their part to escape.216 However, the Commission has also concluded in Civil Liberties Organisation v. Nigeria, that holding a detainee in a military camp was ‘not necessarily inhuman’ 210 ACHPR, Huri-Laws v. Nigeria, Comm. No. 225/98, para. 40. 211 ACHPR, John D. Ouko v. Kenya, Comm. No. 232/99, para. 22. 212 ACHPR, Media Rights Agenda (on behalf of Niran Malaolu) v. Nigeria, Comm. No. 224/98, 28th Ordinary Session (6 November 2000), para. 70. 213 Ibid., para. 72. 214 ACHPR, Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa v. Angola, Comm. No. 292/2004. 215 Ibid. para. 52. 216 ACHPR, International Pen, Constitutional Rights Project, INTERIGHTS (on behalf of Ken Saro-Wiwa, Jr.) and Civil Liberties Organisation v. Nigeria, Comm. Nos. 137/94, 139/94, 154/96 & 161/97, para. 79. 57