E/CN.4/2001/66 page 76 Code’s failure to exclude obeying orders as a pretext for avoiding responsibility and the maintenance of senior officers as members of the courts. He also regrets the Government’s blocking the adoption of legislation characterizing enforced disappearance, genocide, forced displacement and torture (ibid., 139-141). Congo 348. Par une lettre datée du 17 novembre 2000 envoyée conjointement avec le Rapporteur spécial sur les exécutions extrajudiciaires, sommaires ou arbitraires, le Rapporteur spécial a informé le gouvernement qu’il avait reçu des informations selon lesquelles 12 personnes seraient récemment décédées en détention au commissariat de police de Tié-Tié 2 à Pointe Noire alors qu’elles étaient regroupées dans une cellule exiguë sans système d’aération. Observations 349. The Special Rapporteur considers it appropriate to bring to the attention of the Commission the relevant findings of the Human Rights Committee on its consideration of the second periodic report of the Republic of Congo in March 2000 under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, where the Committee expressed its concern at “the use of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and at the failure to criminalize torture as such in internal law in such a way that it is no longer possible to treat cases of torture as simple cases of voluntary infliction of blows and wounds” and recommended that “effective measures” be taken “to combat torture, to criminalize torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in internal law, to punish the perpetrators of such crimes and, in future, to avoid treating cases of torture as simple cases of voluntary infliction of blows and wounds”. (CCPR/C/79/Add.118 of 25 April 2000, para. 13.) Croatia 350. By letter dated 5 October 2000, the Special Rapporteur advised the Government that he had received information on the following individual cases, to which the Government responded by letter dated 4 December 2000. 351. Nikola Meletič was reportedly detained on 29 October 1999 by two officers of the special police in Dubrovnik, apparently for failing to close his bar on time. He was allegedly beaten and kicked in the stomach by the two officers at the time of arrest and at the police station. He was then denied the right to call a lawyer or his family. He lost consciousness later that night and sought medical treatment following his release. According to a medical report issued by Dubrovnik General Hospital, he sustained bruising to his head, neck and shoulder, as well as injury to his eye. He is said to have filed a criminal complaint against the five police officers allegedly involved. 352. The Government responded that the allegations of ill-treatment by the police were completely unfounded. A police officer from the First Police Station Dubrovnik and three members of the Special Police Unit had, during operation “Kor” on 29 October 1999, used