6 Rehabilitation of Offenders and necessary to implement the progressive treatment regime that the law establishes. (f) Moreover, the petitioners also allege violation of the right to humane treatment in the case of the next of kin of the 107 young men who died in the Cellblock 19 fire. They contend that those next of kin endured pain and suffering in various ways, first because of the way in which the victims died and then because of the authorities’ conduct subsequent to the fire. As regards the authorities’ conduct, the petitioners emphasize the way in which the victims’ lifeless bodies were treated following the fire, and the disorganized and unscientific method of identifying them and then handing them over to the next of kin. 21. The petitioners also allege a violation of the right to personal liberty, set forth in Article 7 of the American Convention, in the case of the 22 alleged victims who were accused only of the crime of unlawful association and whose names follow: 4 Andrés Enrique Zepeda, Darwin Geovany López Medina, Edwing Alberto Guzmán, Eleazar Machado Figueroa, Edgardo Alejandro Hernández, Eddy Adalberto Amaya Zepeda, Esmelin Teruel Fernández, Ixel Alfredo Medina, Jesús Aguilar Leiva, José Antonio Morales, José Antonio Rodríguez, Luis Alberto Escobar Vallecillo, Maynor Juaquín Ardón López, Marco Josué Sierra, Melvin Isaías López Recarte, Miguel Eduardo Mercado, Miguel Ángel Pérez Godoy, Mario Roberto Velásquez Dubón, Nelson Rafael Ortega Martínez, Oscar Israel Duarte Valle, Pedro Hernán Tabora Castillo and Víctor David Torres Funez. The petitioners contend that the incarceration of these 22 individuals was the result of the amendments to the grounds for incarceration in the case of the offense of “unlawful association,” under which a person could be incarcerated merely for being suspected of belonging to a gang, without considering whether the person in question had actually engaged in any criminal conduct. In practice, any person might be detained arbitrarily and indiscriminately merely on the grounds of outward signs of gang membership, such as tattoos. The petitioners contend that the crime of unlawful association, being an essential element of the “zero tolerance” policies, has been regulated and enforced in such a way as to allow massive detentions of young people merely on suspicion or out of prejudice. 22. As for the alleged violations of articles 8 and 25 of the American Convention, the petitioners basically contend that the investigation that the State launched ex officio has been unduly protracted, riddled with irregularities and ineffective. They state that while the Director of the San Pedro Sula Prison was criminally prosecuted, the State has not yet satisfied the right that the victims’ next of kin have to know the truth and has not yet punished those responsible. 23. The judicial proceedings against the Director of the San Pedro Sula Prison began on August 11, 2004, when the Public Prosecutor’s Office filed a bill of indictment against him in the Criminal Court of the San Pedro Sula Judicial District. The proceedings came to a formal close on January 10, 2005, the date on which the Constitutional Chamber of the Honduran Supreme Court declared inadmissible the petition of amparo filed by the Public Prosecutor’s Office to challenge the decision of the San Pedro Sula Appellate Court in which it upheld the lower court’s dismissal of the charges against the Director of the prison. 24. Specifically, the petitioners contend that the violation of articles 8 and 25 of the American Convention is the result of the failure to conduct a proper investigation and the ineffectiveness of the domestic remedies. On the first of these points, the petitioners argue that the authorities have not pursued other possible avenues of investigation, and have instead exclusively confined themselves to establishing the possible culpability of the prison director; they have 4 The petitioners’ observations on the merits, dated April 10, 2009.