Incidents of torture increase during conflict. Hence, we should have enough mechanism to deal with torture and end impunity
KATHMANDU, JUNE 26
Rights activists have demanded that the government amend torture laws, set up an independent mechanism to investigate torture cases and create a national fund for awarding compensation to torture victims.
Human Rights lawyer Mohan Kumar Karna said the number of torture cases had decreased in recent years, but as torture was outlawed by national and international law, there should be no incident of torture at all. He said the Muluki Criminal Code had prohibited torture, but the code requires torture victims to file a first information report with the police. "It is obvious that police won't admit an FIR that accuses the same police or their fellows of torture," Karna said and added that there were very few cases of torture filed in the court and that too became possible only due to court intervention.
Director of Advocacy Forum Bikash Basnet said torture incidents had decreased, but his office did not have access to all detention centres so it could not determine the exact situation in detention centres. He said police first do not admit FIR in torture case and when they do, they do not thoroughly investigate the case.
Advocate Sunil Ranjan Singh who had filed a case at the Supreme Court demanding independent mechanism to investigate incidents of torture during Madhes movement, said fair investigation of torture case was necessary or else security personnel could easily resort to torture if the country witnessed conflict again. "Incidents of torture increase during conflict. Hence, we should have enough mechanism to deal with torture and end impunity in torture cases," he added.
Spokesperson for National Human Rights Commission Shyam Babu Kafle said there were 358 complaints related to torture under NHRC consideration. Of these, around 100 cases were from Maoist insurgency era. Kafle said although the NHRC had recommended compensation for victims of torture, violence and discrimination, the government had provided very little compensation in those cases.
"From the inception of NHRC, we have recommended that the government provide compensation of almost Rs 200 million, but the government has provided only around Rs 70 million compensation to the victims," he informed.
The government has not given priority to torture cases. Families of conflict victims, including those whose family members were killed or who became victims of enforced disappearance got interim relief, but torture victims are yet to get relief and compensation, said Kafle.
According to Kafle, the existing process for getting compensation is complicated and time-consuming as the document has to be sent to the Prime Minister's Office first, which refers the document to the home ministry, which again refers the document to the Ministry of Finance. When the finance ministry okays the process, it sends the document back to the home ministry which forwards the document to the concerned district administration office and only then torture victims get compensation, Kafle added.
He said the NHRC had urged the government to create a national fund to provide compensation to victims of torture, violence and discrimination, and the rights body was expecting the government to allocate budget for the same. However, this time, the government failed to allocate fund for compensation.
In recent years, police have been getting arrestees medically checked on the day of their arrest and on the day of release from custody. This process, however, is not effective when it comes to checking for possibility of torture at the hands of police.
"The government needs to ensure that a person arrested on the charge of a crime must be seen by a forensic expert on the day he/she is arrested and released from custody. What actually happens is that an arrestee is seen by medical officers who cannot fully detect torture signs," Kafle added.
Meanwhile, Advocacy Forum issued a press release calling on the government to amend the transitional justice law to ensure effective remedies for victims of torture during armed conflict.
Advocacy Forum has documented 1,284 cases of torture, beatings, and mutilations of comparable gravity during conflict inflicted by various actors, including the Nepali Army, Nepal Police, Armed Police Force, Maoists, and government-sponsored vigilante groups, known as 'Village Defence Forces'.
AF issued a press release saying victims of torture have been waiting for truth, justice and reparation for the last several years. The interim relief programme for 'conflict victims' rolled out by the then government as early as 2008 also excluded victims of torture and sexual violence who needed such relief the most. Such discrimination continues to exist even today despite repeated promises by successive governments to address this, AF added.
The criminal code criminalised torture, but it has no retroactive effect. The code also imposes a statute of limitation of six months for reporting crimes of torture. Thus, without amendment, this code does not provide any remedy for torture victims of the conflict period, AF stated in its release.
A version of this article appears in the print on June 27, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
