Human Rights Groups Raise Concerns Over India’s Treatment of Drug Users

January 27, 2012

Harm Reduction International, the Indian Harm Reduction Network and the Asian Network of People who Use Drugs authored a submission on India to the UN Human Rights Council for the Universal Periodic Review. The joint submission focuses on the death penalty for drug offenses, compulsory drug treatment, and concerns related to the availability of harm reduction services and the right to health.

The Universal Periodic Review is a peer-review process, under the auspices of the United Nations Human Rights Council, in which countries review one another’s human rights records. Every country gets reviewed once every four years. Civil society is invited to provide submissions of information which are considered during the review. India’s review will take place in early 2012.
 
The submission’s section on drug treatment includes the following paragraph, highlighting ongoing severe abuse of people in drug detention centers that rises to the level of torture and ill-treatment:

With respect to drug treatment, there are many additional concerns regarding the State’s positive obligation to ensure the right to life and the prohibition on cruel and inhuman treatment are respected. There have been many troubling incidents of abuse, many even resulting in death, at drug treatment centres around the country. These include reports of people being beaten to death within these centres after attempting to flee. One treatment centre was run on the motto “changed when chained,” and reportedly shackled patients’ legs together and only loosened links the longer these residents remained drug free.

The full submission is available here: http://www.ihra.net/files/2011/12/21/India_HRC.pdf

Country : India

Tagged : Asian Harm Reduction Network   death penalty   drug treatment   drug users   harm reduction   Harm Reduction International   India   Indian Harm Reduction Network   physical abuse   United Nations