Publications

Somsanga’s secrets - Arbitrary detention, physical abuse, and suicide inside a Lao drug detention center

18 October 2011

This report from Human Rights Watch examines conditions in the Somsanga Treatment and Rehabilitation Center, which has received a decade of international support from the United States, the United Nations, and other donors.

Detainees are held without due process, and many are locked in cells inside barbed wire compounds. Former detainees told Human Rights Watch that they had been held for periods of three months to more than a year. Police and guards are a constant presence, and those who try to escape may be brutally beaten.

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