Amnesty International Moldova, in concert with the Bar Association “Public Lawyers”, launched a project aimed at removing the defective practices applied by the police during detention and custody. The authors intend to work out and implement strategies for counteracting the bad practices used by police officers, prosecution officers and prosecutors when arresting persons suspected of committing crimes, IPN reports.

Public lawyers Natalia Molosag and Veronica Mihailov-Moraru, experts of the project, told a news conference that the rights of the persons under arrest are violated in Moldova. These persons are not clearly explained their rights, including the right to keep silent, at least until the lawyer arrives. There are cases when mistaken data are introduced when drawing up the arrest report and the persons are prevented from informing their relatives.

Veronica Mihailov-Moraru said it is usually hard to obtain the taking of legal action against police officers. The prosecutors designated to examine the complaints refuse to start criminal cases, invoking the absence of evidence.

Victor Munteanu, program director at Soros Foundation Moldova, which supports the project, said that suspects’ rights to medical care, decent and human treatment and to interpreter, if necessary, are violated. The accused is obliged to make depositions by different methods of torture that cannot be detected at first sight. The project that will be implemented during a year aims to remove the identified procedural deficiencies.

Lawyer Victor Pantaru has told IPN that the human rights are violated everywhere. The difference is that in some of the states the rights are violated less, while in other states they are violated massively. “Most of the times, the violation of human rights is tolerated by public servants. But these rights include such fundamental rights as not to be discriminated, to family, to information, to workplace for example,” said the lawyer, urging the people to inform about such situations.

Four cases investigated within the project will underline the necessity of guaranteeing the lawyers’ right to have confidential meetings with the arrested person, unlimitedly and unconditionally, in a specially set up place, the arrested person’s rights to an interpreter and to immediately and efficiently challenge the illegal acts of the police by which the person’s rights were violated.