Recently, the human rights defender's office has received many alerts from the competent authorities regarding the ongoing problems related to the proper management of the hunger strike of persons deprived of their freedom in penal institutions.
Among other things, questions about access to inpatient medical care are raised.
Defender Anahit Manasyan considers the unnecessary delays in the transfer of hunger strikers in need of inpatient treatment to the "Hospital of Convicts" penitentiary or health authorities to a treatment facility, which sometimes has irreversible consequences.
Thus, the staff of the Human Rights Defender received an alert regarding the death of a person deprived of his freedom who was on hunger strike for 20 days. The HRD staff constantly discussed the issue of the need for inpatient treatment of the latter in various formats with the "Center for Penitentiary Medicine" SNOC.
The defender emphasizes that the state is responsible for ensuring the rights of persons deprived of liberty or otherwise under the jurisdiction of the state. Competent state bodies are obliged to take all measures to prevent violations of their rights, as well as comprehensive, full and objective investigation of criminal proceedings initiated in relation to death cases. to ensure.
The human rights defender also considers the fact that incarcerated persons often express their grievances in prisons by self-harming, including swallowing foreign bodies, which somehow become available to the incarcerated persons , that competent authorities should take active measures to prevent these circumstances.
The Human Rights Defender referred to the above problems many times, both in public speeches and during various discussions. The topic was also analyzed in detail in the 2023 Annual Report of the National Prevention Mechanism (https://shorturl.at/wQ5XL).
Issues of ensuring the rights to life and health protection in places of deprivation of liberty are always under the direct attention of the Human Rights Defender.
They are analyzed in detail by the Defender, relevant proposals are presented to the competent authorities in order to improve the sector.
