Brussels, 7 October 2024 (MIA) – The Interior Ministry’s department for internal control, criminal investigations and professional standards has been sanctioning all illegal, unprofessional and unethical actions by Interior Ministry staff members, thus sending a strong message that professional integrity of its staff is its strategic commitment, says the response of the Macedonian authorities to the latest report of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT).

The measures taken and planned by the Macedonian authorities, prepared on the basis of the CPT report’s recommendations are included in the report.

Primarily, the measures refer to a preparation of a project to reconstruct the closed section of the Idrizovo prison with co-financing by the Council of Europe’s Development Bank, improvement of the quality of food prepared for Idrizovo inmates, recruitment and training of additional staff for prison police, including the ongoing efforts taken to curb corruption in the institution. 

The response also contains information on solving the problem with inadequate treatment of patients in psychiatric institutions, renovating run-down wards of the psychiatric hospitals visited by CPT officials and on the process of deinstitutionalisation of social care residents. 

The CPT report is made based on the findings of CPT’s team that visited the country last year before it was published on May 15, 2024. It focuses on the treatment of people detained by police, including the efficiency of investigations into complaints over alleged police brutality and the conditions of detained people in four prisons and the educational center for youth. 

In the document, the treatment and living conditions of patients in two psychiatric hospitals and of residents in social care homes was also criticized.

The CPT team in the report concluded that there was no improvement compared to the previous visits in relation to police treatment of detained people. The Committee urged the Macedonian authorities to prepare a comprehensive strategy on the fight against inadequate police treatment and on improvement of the efficiency of investigations into reports of police misconduct. 

The situation in the Idrizovo prison, the report noted, which houses almost 60 percent of the total number of inmates in the country, remains alarming, including cases of physical assault of inmates by prison guards, long isolation of inmates, high level of violence among inmates as well as lack of hygiene and unsafe conditions that further worsens the conditions alongside overcrowding. 

According to the CPT team, rampant corruption of staff and the benefits enjoyed by certain inmates further undermine the functioning of the prison, resulting in some inmates residing in poor conditions. 

The Committee noted that the country’s prison system should undergo strategic reform, which has been urged for over a decade, with a special accent on eradicating corruption among prison guards and establishing professionalisation of prison managers. The reform, according to CPT, will require appointments of prison officials to be transparent, based on merit and freed of politics. 

MIA file photo