‘Torture systematic in Nepal’

UN Special Rapporteur Manfred Nowak told a Geneva-based panel on May 2 that of the four countries he visited on fact finding missions, Nepal was the only country where he concluded that torture was conducted on a systematic basis.

According to UN News Center, Nowak said so while briefing the Committee against Torture on the missions to Georgia, Mongolia, Nepal and China, along with detention facilities in Guantanamo Bay.

"Torture was being conducted both by the Government and the Maoists who were using shocking forms of torture, including on their own members," the Committee quoted Nowak as saying about his trip to Nepal in September 2005.

"One of the reasons he concluded that the practice of torture was systematic was that he had had fairly frank admissions at a high level. One official had said that 'a little bit of torture helps.'"
Nepal is also a country that had received the highest number of allegations in 2004, 2005 and 2006.