218. In addition to these provisions, there is the need to consider Articles 213 et seq of the same Code relating to control of the activities of the criminal police officer by the Indictments Chamber. 219. To complete this preventive mechanism against torture, the Senegalese legislator, after ratifying the United Nations Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment on 18 October 2006, adopted the Law establishing the National Observer of Places of Deprivation of Liberty (ONLPL), which is an independent authority vested with the power to exercise control of all detention and custodial centres. 220. SENEGAL reaffirmed its commitment to democracy and respect for human rights on 25 March 2012 by a peaceful change of power at the presidential level of governance. 221. Its quality is all the more important as the changeover was successful following an unprecedented pre-electoral and electoral violence in the recent history of our country. 222. These acts of violence unfortunately brought the Police and the Gendarmerie forces into the forefront and their subsequent use of excessive force in the course of the political demonstrations which took place in February 2012. 223. These events which were acknowledged by three Special Rapporteurs of the Human Rights Council (HRC), by the African Commission and by Amnesty International (AI) recorded loss of human lives and serious cases of torture and cruel treatment meted out to civilians. 224. In May 2012, Amnesty International (AI), Senegal Chapter brought its report71 into the public domain by exposing serious human rights violations caused by the troubles that characterized the pre-electoral period. 225. Among other recommendations made, the aforementioned organization, outraged, undoubtedly, by the numerous cases of torture of citizens and the use of excessive force by the security agencies, sometimes, of course, leading to loss of human lives, appealed to the new authorities to prosecute the alleged perpetrators of such acts and to ensure payment of compensation to the victims of such human rights abuses by initiating subsequent judicial proceedings. 226. To prevent torture, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention against Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment as well as various United Nations resolutions recommend to States to 71 An Agenda for human rights, an opportunity the new authorities who emerged from the 2012 presidential elections cannot gloss over. 49