Yerevan /Mediamax/. The European Committee for Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) has published the report on Armenia.

It is based on the results of the committee delegation’s visit to Armenia from 5 to 15 October.

The Council of Europe (CoE) delegation visited several police establishments, prisons, detention facilities, isolators, prison hospitals, and psychiatric facilities to assess the measures taken by the Armenian authorities to improve conditions at the abovementioned places.

The delegation stated that despite certain improvements overcrowding remains a problem in prisons.

In this context CPT recommended the Armenian authorities to pursue according legislative and organisational measures.

“It was also clear that corruption remained a problem in the Armenian prison system,” the report reads.

The CoE delegation received many complaints from people in police custody, claiming that they were subjected to physical and psychological ill-treatment by the police, as well as to excessive use of force upon apprehension.

At Nubarashen Prison the CoE delegation noticed that “The rooms only contained old beds with worn out mattresses, and were very bleak. Patients had no lockers for storing their personal belongings. Some areas of the above-mentioned wards smelled of urine.”

CPT urged the Armenian authorities to take necessary measures to provide patients of the psychiatric facilities an opportunity to express their complaints.