approximately 4 m2, which was designed for visits, had no windows, and had only a table and chair for furniture. At the time of the visit, a woman was being held at the police station, but her detention had not been registered. The SPT recommends to the State party that female detainees should be transferred to police stations that have female officers to guard them and suitable facilities for ensuring they are separated from male detainees. The SPT recommends that the State party should take the necessary steps to increase female police staff at police stations. 132.The SPT visited the Special Unit of the National Police, which was originally designed as a training centre for anti-riot policing, mounted police work and dog-handling but which in practice was used for guarding inmates, including former police officers. Police officers interviewed by the SPT spoke of the lack of funds or training to carry out prison work, and the unsuitability of the building to guard the prisoners, who had to occupy police dormitories. They said that the Ministry of Justice and Labour, which was responsible for the prison system, allocated no budget at all to the Special Unit for the food and maintenance of the prisoners held there, which meant that the prisoners had to rely on family members for food, or else were dependent on the goodwill and charity of police officers to share their own food with them. Some of the prisoners interviewed who did not receive visits said that police officers had given them only two biscuits for lunch and two biscuits for dinner and, on occasion, maté tea with two biscuits for breakfast. The prisoners also said that, because of a recent escape, their daily breaks in the fresh air had been stopped and they were only allowed to go into the corridor for one hour a day, remaining locked up in their cells for the remainder of the time. 133. The SPT recommends that the State party should, as a matter of urgency, put an end to the practice of prolonged detention in National Police premises. The SPT recommends that persons being held in preventive detention while awaiting trial should be transferred immediately to prisons where they should be separated from convicted persons. To this end the State party should take the necessary interim measures to house the detainees in conditions compatible with human dignity. 14.Allegations of torture and other ill-treatment 134.The SPT received various testimonies from persons who said that they had been subjected to torture or ill-treatment by National Police officers. Such acts generally took place during arrest or transfer to the police station, or at the station itself, in the initial hours of detention. Sometimes the police officers concerned were not in uniform but wore civilian clothes. According to the people interviewed, the purpose of the torture or ill-treatment was to obtain confessions, inform against other people or provide information on the whereabouts of supposedly stolen goods. 135.The SPT found that there was a certain consistency in the reports by detainees concerning the techniques of torture and illtreatment used. They repeatedly stated that the techniques commonly employed included suffocation by plastic bags (the “dry submarine” method), sometimes combined with being stripped naked, punches to the windpipe, blows to the ears and nape of the neck, and squeezing of the testicles. One of the detainees interviewed told how two police officers took him to a room in the police station, which he described in detail, where they obliged him to kneel down and placed a white plastic bag over his head in order to suffocate him. The detainee estimated that the suffocation lasted one minute or one and a half minutes, during which time he thought, “that he was going to die”. They also threatened to squeeze his testicles. The persons responsible for these acts were identified by the detainee, although they were not in the police station at the time of the interview. 136.Another detainee interviewed reported having undergone similar acts of torture in another police station where police officers tried to suffocate him using plastic bags. As the detainee managed to burst the first four plastic bags, a thicker bag was eventually used on him. His testicles were also squeezed so hard that he felt a violent pain in his abdomen. 137.All the minors interviewed said that they had suffered torture and ill-treatment during arrest and detention in various police stations throughout the region. They all reported that they had been beaten by the police in the street. According to repeated allegations by the minors concerned, police officers generally patrolled the streets in private cars, dressed in civilian clothes. Some of the minors interviewed had been stripped naked and given the “dry submarine” treatment in the first hours of police detention. 138.One of the women interviewed said that she had been subjected to ill-treatment by a policeman during police detention. The policeman asked her to perform oral sex on him in exchange for better treatment, struck her in the abdomen and tugged her hair. 139.Various detainees interviewed described how they had been beaten on the soles of their feet (falaqa), which in the case of one detainee had been done with billiard cues. Another detainee interviewed told of how the police had wet the floor of his cell and then threatened to electrocute him with an electric cable. The SPT found that there was a cable hanging up in front of the cell door – which did not seem to serve any particular purpose. 140.One interviewee in prolonged detention said that the person who had tortured him was the same one who was guarding his cell at that very moment, which brought back memories of the torture he had suffered. In addition to the deplorable detention conditions described above, the SPT observed examples of other types of ill-treatment by the police. In one of the police stations visited, one detainee who had just arrived was obliged by the police to pick up rubbish with his hands from the station yard before entering his cell. The SPT sees no justification for the police to behave in such a way with a detainee; in the Subcommittee’s opinion it constitutes abusive treatment. In another of the police stations visited, the police superintendent considered it acceptable and natural to deal “corrective” blows to detainees. In this connection, the SPT draws attention to the discrepancy with the statement made by the National Police authorities, who maintained that torture and ill-treatment were not tolerated and that there would be no cover-up of the perpetrators, who would be investigated and would be suspended from duty while the investigation was under way. 141.None of the detainees interviewed had filed complaints concerning the torture or ill-treatment described, even if some of them could have done so at the hearing in the Public Prosecutor’s Office, claiming that they feared reprisals or that the remedies available were ineffective. In this connection, the SPT underlines that steps should be taken to ensure that persons who file a complaint of torture or ill-treatment are protected against possible reprisals.