A/68/44
expelled, returned or extradited to another State where there are substantial grounds
for believing that that person would face a personal and foreseeable risk of being
subjected to torture. In particular, the State party should give clear instructions to its
immigration officials and other law enforcement officers, expand the curriculum of its
mandatory training courses on asylum and the protection of refugees, and ensure that
CONARE takes prompt action, in accordance with its terms of reference, to ensure
that the principle of non-refoulement is upheld.
The State party should also:
(a)
Establish regulations to govern the procedures used to determine
whether or not a person is stateless and the procedures relating to the determination
of migrant status, documentation and the protection of such persons in order to
ensure that the State party is fulfilling the international commitments assumed under
the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (1954). The State party
should also grant its nationality, in accordance with its national laws and subject to
the criteria set forth in the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (1961), to
persons who were not born on Bolivian territory but who would otherwise be stateless.
The State may request technical advisory services, as needed, from the Office of the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in this connection;
(b)
Establish effective mechanisms for the identification of asylum seekers,
stateless persons and other individuals in need of international protection and for
their referral to CONARE and other authorized institutions. The State party should
take particular care to ensure that people are not wrongfully turned back at the
border and that victims of trafficking and other persons in need of international
protection are identified, especially in the context of mixed migration flows.
Prison conditions
(18) The Committee is alarmed by the extent of overcrowding in the State party’s jails.
The delegation has indicated that the mean rate of overcrowding in the prison system is 193
per cent, with a total prison population of 14,272 inmates being held in facilities built to
house 4,864. While taking note of the fact that new facilities are being built and of
Presidential Decree No. 1445, which deals with pardons, of 22 December 2012, the
Committee is of the view that the impact of these measures will be minimal, given the sharp
increase in the prison population in recent years and the large percentage of the prison
population that is made up of people awaiting trial (83.3 per cent). The Committee regrets
that it has not received the additional information that it requested on progress in the
implementation of the National Human Rights Action Plan in this area. Nor has it received
the information requested from the State party about the riots and disturbances that
frequently occur in the country’s jails as prisoners protest about failures to pay the daily
food allowance, demand better medical care and a reduction in overcrowding, and protest
against decisions taken by prison administrators on such issues as the restriction of visiting
hours or the transfer of minors from rehabilitation centres. In addition, the Committee is
concerned by reports describing the power wielded by organized gangs of prisoners in some
correctional facilities, cases of abuse and extortion, and violent incidents among inmates. It
is also concerned by the fact that remand prisoners are not always held separately from
convicted prisoners and by the existence of mixed prison facilities in which female inmates
have become victims of sexual violence, as acknowledged by the delegation of the State
party (arts. 2, 11 and 16).
The Committee urges the State party to take the necessary steps to ensure that prison
conditions are in keeping with the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of
Prisoners approved by the Economic and Social Council in its resolution 663 C
100
GE.13-46043
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