Mr. Koshy Mathew, President SICHREM, Mr. Henri Tiphagne, Executive Director People’s Watch, Dr. Lenin, Convener, PVCHR, Mr. Pravin, Secretary, Jan Madhyam, Mr. Mantu Ahanthem, Executive Director, Wide Angel, Mr. Krity Roy, Founder, MASUM
planned on the given below points:
National Database
A national database of torture cases should be developed which shall be accessible to all the stakeholders. The data base should entailinformation of the cases and necessary updates on all the actions taken with regard to each and individual r case.
b. National Yearly Report and other research reports
A yearly report on the situation of torture in India should be published by the stakeholders with a view to raise awareness, public opinion and necessary actions by the policy makers.
In addition, research should focus on various aspects of torture including the root causes and make recommendations for addressing the problems.
c. Permanent Peoples Tribunal on Torture
A Permanent Peoples Tribunal shall be established consisting of the eminent personalities. At least four tribunals should be held in a year. This shall be linked up with medical rehabilitation including the use of
the testimonial model for healing.
Action 2: Legal Rehabilitation
A programme on combating torture should entail legal rehabilitation of the individual victims, developing of legal standards and jurisprudence.
Legal rehabilitation could be focused on each State where feasible or certain States together in armed conflict situations considering the challenges and threats in providing legal aid in armed conflict situations.
Action 3: Monitoring the functioning of torture by NHRIsApart from the National Human Rights Commission, there are a number of National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) which have a role to play to combat/eradicate torture. The key NHRIs include National Commission for Minorities (NCM), National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC),National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST), National Commission for Women (NCW) and National Commission for Protection of Child Rights.
Considering that NHRIs seldom effectively address the cases of torture,
the following actions should be considered:
- Filing of the complaints with these NHRIs through the alliance considering that the complaints are often not registered and victims/complainants are subjected to torture/ intimidation/ harassment by the perpetrators;
- Monitoring of the cases (by linking with the National Database programme) and taking appropriate actions (linking with legal rehabilitation) against the NHRIs for the failure to address torture.
Similar actions can be taken with regard to the State Human Rights Commissions and other State level NHRIs.
Action 4: Rehabilitation
For rehabilitation, each State should have rehabilitation centre for
- Develop the testimonial therapy to contextualize with local situations;
- Providing necessary medical assistance;
- Sensitise the medical professionals
- Sensitise the other stakeholders.
