E/CN.4/2000/9 page 90 the private Tarika Clinic in Addis Ababa, and Mulugetta Tirfessa Tufa, an insurance company employee. The three were reportedly held in incommunicado detention. Mossisa Duressa was reportedly arrested on 15 August 1999 by security officers in Nekemte on suspicion of membership of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF). He is diabetic and requires daily insulin injections. Tassev Begashaw had reportedly been arrested on 15 August 1999. He was reportedly accused of giving treatment to OLF suspects. He was reportedly currently held in incommunicado detention at Maikelawi criminal investigation centre in Addis Ababa. Mulugetta Tirfessa Tufa had reportedly been arrested on 19 August 1999 in Addis Ababa and was reportedly held in incommunicado detention at Maikelawi criminal investigation centre in Addis Ababa. At the time of his arrest, he was still receiving medical treatment for a leg injury in 1992. France Regular communications and replies received 442. By letter dated 3 September 1999, the Special Rapporteur informed the Government that he had received information on the following cases. 443. Chinese asylum-seekers who arrived by boat in New Caledonia, particularly Nouméa, in early November 1997 were allegedly arrested and held, first in a former clinic and then in the military hangars at Tontouta airport. They reportedly submitted their applications for refugee status on 12 January 1998 but were kept in detention until March 1998. On 22 March 1998, hearing that they were to be deported, about sixty of the asylum-seekers reportedly sought refuge on the hangar roofs. About one hundred officers of the immigration police (DICCILEC), who had travelled from Paris to oversee the return of the asylumseekers, and members of mobile gendarme units allegedly fired on them with rubber bullets after stones and other projectiles were thrown in retaliation for the tear gas used by the security forces. Nine men were reportedly injured and taken to Gaston Bourret hospital in Nouméa. Two are said to have serious injuries, one on the face and the other on the thorax. A few hours later, the authorities decided to postpone the deportation and to release the asylumseekers. 444. Narendran Yogeswaran, Naddarajah Vijeyalalitha and Mylvaganan Arunan, three Sri Lankan asylum-seekers, were reportedly beaten and handcuffed, kicked and gagged with cellophane tape in September 1998 at Roissy airport while being deported by the police. An internal administrative inquiry by the Immigration Police (DICCILEC) was reportedly ordered, but at the end of 1998 its results were still unknown. The Director of the Immigration Police allegedly stated that only the force strictly necessary to restore calm had been used. The three asylum-seekers were finally sent back to Sri Lanka. 445. Sixteen trade union members were allegedly beaten and kicked while protesting nuclear tests in Papeete in September 1995. They were reportedly forced to remain for 45 minutes on their knees, handcuffed and with their faces to the ground, in a parking lot near the military barracks of Papeete. One of them was allegedly hit with a truncheon and lost consciousness. He is said to have been taken to hospital, where he was treated for incipient paralysis of the right side. An inquiry has been ordered. 446. Abdlekrim Boumlik, a young man of Moroccan origin aged 16, was reportedly arrested at Soisy-sous-Montmorency by the anti-crime brigade on 7 April 1996