like to refer your Excellency’s Government to the United Nations Standard Minimum
Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, also known as the Nelson Mandela Rules, adopted
in General Assembly resolution 70/175. In particular, we would like to recall rule 42,
which refers to general living conditions in detention as laid out in the resolution and
their application to all prisoners without exception.
We would also like to refer to articles 19 and 21 of the ICCPR, which guarantee
the right to freedom of opinion and expression and the right to peaceful assembly,
respectively. In particular, we wish to remind your Excellency’s Government that any
restrictions to the exercise of these rights must be provided by law and be necessary and
proportionate to the aim pursued. In this regard, we would like to bring to your
Excellency’s Government’s attention the Human Rights Committee a norm, to be
characterized as a “law”, must be formulated with sufficient precision to enable an
individual to regulate his or her conduct accordingly and it must be made accessible to
the public. A law may not confer unfettered discretion for the restriction of freedom of
expression on those charged with its execution, CCPR/C/GC/34 para. 25. Likewise, in his
report to the General Assembly on impact of counter-terrorism measures on civil society,
the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental
freedoms while countering terrorism urged States to ensure that their counter-terrorism
legislation is sufficiently precise to comply with the principle of legality, so as to prevent
the possibility that it may be used to target civil society on political or other unjustified
grounds, see A/70/371, para 46(c)).
As indicated by the Human Rights Committee, attacks against individuals
because of the exercise of their freedom of opinion or expression, including through
arbitrary arrests, torture, threats to life and killing, are incompatible with the Covenant
CCPR/C/GC/34 para 23.
We would also like to call the attention of your Excellency’s Government to the
joint report of the Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and
of association and the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary
executions on the proper management of assemblies, which states that those who take
part in assemblies have a number of protected rights, including the rights to: freedom of
peaceful assembly, expression, association and belief; participation in the conduct of
public affairs; bodily integrity, which includes the rights to security, to be free from cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and to life; dignity; privacy; and an
effective remedy for all human rights violations. Even if participants in an assembly are
not peaceful and as a result forfeit their right to peaceful assembly, they retain all the
other rights, subject to the normal limitations. No assembly should thus be considered
unprotected (A/HRC/31/66, paras. 8 & 9).
In addition, we refer to the report of the Special Rapporteur on the rights to
freedom of peaceful assembly and of association A/HRC/20/27, which states that “States
7