Cameroon’s National Human Rights and Freedoms Commission (CNDHL) has advised the government to work in favor of speeding up trials to avoid lengthy detention.
Officials of the institution in a statement seen by APA on Thursday also recommended that the public authorities open investigations into allegations of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of some detainees, as well as take subsequent measures against their perpetrators.
With regard to the mutinies that took place on July 22 and 23 in the prisons of Yaoundé, and the capital of the South-West region, Buea, the CNDHL also called for improvements to the conditions of prisoners.
To this end, particular emphasis should be placed on the efficient management of overcrowding in prisons, it advised.
According to the Ministry of Justice, by the end of Aigust 2015, out of a total of 28,120 prisoners in Cameroon’s prisons with an initial capacity of 17,000, 16,441 prisoners were in pre-trial detention, representing 59 percent of the population of those detained nationwide.
According to the CNDHL, the continued deterioration of detention conditions in the country is due to the failure to comply with certain legal standards, especially those relating to procedural delays, the prohibition of arbitrary arrests and detentions as well as acts of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, but also the excessive use of pretrial detention by judges.
FCEB/id/cat/lb/as/APA