Recommendations

To the President, Acting Defense Minister, and Interior Minister

• Ensure a prompt, fair, and transparent investigation into allegations of torture and cruel or inhuman treatment. Put on administrative leave any soldier or law enforcement official against whom there is credible evidence showing that he ordered, carried out, or acquiesced to acts of torture or ill-treatment.
• Direct the Office of the Public Prosecutor to investigate in a thorough, impartial, and prompt manner all torture allegations against law enforcement officials, regardless of rank and whether the victim or family has formally filed a complaint.
• Urgently take steps to permit independent visiting of places of detention by representatives of human rights and humanitarian organizations, lawyers, medical professionals, and members of local bar associations. Ensure complete access to international and Ivorian detention monitors, including the ability to speak confidentially with detainees.
• Cease immediately the holding of civilians at military camps. Ensure that any civilian arrested is promptly brought to a police or gendarme station, even in cases where the military was inappropriately involved in the arrest.
• Ensure that, in accordance with Ivorian and international law, any person arrested appears before a judge within 48 hours to consider the legality of detention and the charges against him or her. Release the person if a specific charge is not presented promptly.
• Ensure that arrests and house searches are done in accordance with Ivorian law and international standards. In particular, ensure that arrests occur in hot pursuit or on the basis of an arrest warrant, rather than in mass sweeps based on a collective suspicion of perceived supporters of the former president.
• Ensure that interrogations only occur at places that the law recognizes as being official locations. Ensure that civilians are only interrogated by the branches of the Interior or Justice Ministries legally authorized to do so, rather than by members of the military.
• Reinstate previously successful measures aimed at ending checkpoint extortion by security forces. Sanction any member of the security forces found to be operating an illegal checkpoint or engaging in extortion.
• Progressively return primary authority in internal security to the police and gendarmerie, including through providing sufficient material support so that these forces can undertake basic security functions. In situations where the military is involved in neighborhood sweeps or patrols, ensure that it is done jointly with the police or gendarmerie, to check potential abuses and to build confidence between the different security forces.
• Routinely provide family members of those in detention with information on where the person is currently being held. If a person is transferred to another detention site, inform the family as quickly as possible.

To the National Assembly

• Ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and implement the Protocol through establishing an independent national body to carry out regular and ad hoc unannounced visits to all places of detention.

To the Ghanaian and Liberian Governments

• Arrest and prosecute or extradite individuals against whom there is an international arrest warrant based on evidence linking the person to grave crimes committed during the post-election crisis or to the recent attacks within Côte d’Ivoire, taking into account the Ivorian authorities’ compliance with the UN Convention against Torture.

To European Union Member States

• In line with the Guidelines to EU Policy towards Third Countries on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, EU member states should, through private démarches and public statements, urge Ivorian authorities to take effective measures against torture and ill-treatment, bring all those responsible for torture and ill-treatment to justice, and provide redress to victims.
• Condition parts of the development aid targeted for security sector reform to the government taking rapid steps to address gaps in compliance with international human rights law regarding detention conditions, particularly torture and inhuman treatment.

To the United States and the UN Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI)

• Speak out publicly on the Ivorian government’s need to respond to security threats through measures that correspond to international standards on arrests and the treatment of detainees. Stress that continued abuses by security forces against certain populations will only further the divisions that threaten Côte d’Ivoire’s ability to move out of its decade of grave human rights abuses.
• Discuss with the Ivorian government the importance of ensuring complete access at all sites to detention monitors, including for unannounced, ad hoc visits and to speak individually with detainees in a confidential location. In particular, press for the involvement in detention monitoring of Ivorian organizations, several of whom have historically worked extensively on prison conditions.
• Assist the Ivorian government in making it standard practice at all detention sites to keep a full list of those who are or have been detained, and the date on which the lawful authority to detain them expires.
• Condition parts of assistance to the Ivorian government on its taking rapid steps to address gaps in compliance with international human rights law regarding detention conditions, particularly torture and inhuman treatment. For the United States in particular, ensure that no security assistance is provided unless a thorough vetting guarantees that all units meet the requirements of the Leahy Law, including that Ivorian authorities demonstrate the will and capacity to take effective measures to hold accountable soldiers implicated in serious crimes.
• Work closely with the Ivorian, Liberian, and Ghanaian governments to ensure better information sharing, monitoring, and coordination regarding the arrest and prosecution of people implicated in serious crimes during the Ivorian post-election crisis and in the more recent attacks within Côte d’Ivoire.