Johannesburg - The UN has renamed its standard minimum rules on the treatment of prisoners the “Nelson Mandela Rules” to honour his legacy.
The renaming came as the UN presented updates to its 60-year-old standard rules on Thursday. The updates include the establishment of a prisoner’s right to healthcare and the prohibition of torture and discrimination.
“The Nelson Mandela Rules convey a simple but profound message: prisoners are human beings, born with dignity and entitled to security and to the protection of their human rights,” said Mogens Lykketoft, the president of the UN General Assembly.
He then quoted Mandela: “It is said no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.”
The updates also give guidance for intrusive searches like strip searches and body cavity searches, and specify provisions on solitary confinement, which is now defined as 22 hours or more a day without human contact.
The rules also require prison directors to report any death or serious injury that happens to their prisoners immediately and to investigate these situations promptly and without bias.
UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon called the changes “a great step forward”.
When the executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Yury Fedotov, first announced the resolution in May, he said: “The rules probably represent one of the most significant human rights advances in recent years.”
The Star