Torture Survivors Centre finds ratification of Denmark's Prison Agreement urgent

Their response reportedly calls for institutions for civil society organisations to be enabled monitoring human rights in the Gjilan prison, where prisoners from Denmark will be transferred, in order to ensure the application of international standards and regulations for those deprived of freedom.

The lack of public debate over the Agreement, its implementation and effects on practice, respectively. Apart from the lack of debate in the Assembly, no discussion with field experts, civil society or human rights organisations has been organised by government institutions. The only discussion on this agreement was organised by the CRC in 2022, where international experts had presented the eventual challenges in implementing this” in their presentations.

There are about 200 prisoners in Gjilan Prison, which, in the case of ratification of this agreement, must be moved to other prisons. The correctional system in Kosovo currently does not have specific spaces for the deployment of detainees, the Pristina, Pec, Prizren and Mitrovica detention centres, and currently there are no free seats. So, shifting the detainees from Gjilan Prison, it must be done very carefully so that the standard built over the years for the deployment of detainees” does not fall in response.

“S recently, the UN Committee against Torture has voiced its concern in relation to this agreement by placing the risk of human rights violations in the press, if prisoners are transferred to serve sentence from Denmark in Kosovo”, it is said in response.

On the other hand, the CRC reportedly calls on the Justice Ministry to first make the right solution for the establishment of prisoners currently in Gjilan Prison, so that their deployment and treatment will be in line with human rights standards. The KRC also calls for preserving the established standards and not allowed to create double standards of prison conditions within the Republic of Kosovo.