As a matter of urgency, the State party should take immediate steps to prevent acts of torture and ill-treatment throughout the country. As part of this, the State party should implement effective measures promptly to ensure that all detained suspects are afforded, in practice, all fundamental legal safeguards during their detention. These include, in particular, the right to have access to a lawyer and an independent medical examination, to notify a relative, and to be informed of their rights at the time of detention, including about the charges laid against them, as well as to appear before a judge within a time limit in accordance with international standards. The State party should also ensure that all suspects under criminal investigation are registered. The State party should take the measures necessary to ensure that, both in legislation and in practice, statements that have been made under torture are not invoked as evidence in any proceedings, except against a person accused of torture, in accordance with the provisions of the Convention. The State party should review all cases in which persons were convicted on the basis of coerced confessions with a view to releasing those who were wrongly convicted. The State party should establish consistent and comprehensive standards for independent monitoring mechanisms of all places of detention, ensuring that any body established, at the local or the national level, has a strong and impartial mandate and adequate resources. Conditions of detention and deaths in custody (12) While the Committee takes note of the information from the State party on conditions of detention in prisons, it remains concerned about reports of abuses in custody, including the high number of deaths, possibly related to torture or ill-treatment, and about the lack of investigation into these abuses and deaths in custody. While the Committee notes that the Special Rapporteur on the question of torture has found the availability of medical care in the detention facilities he visited to be generally satisfactory (E/CN.4/2006/6/Add.6, para. 77), it also notes with concern new information provided about inter alia the lack of treatment for drug users and people living with HIV/AIDS and regrets the lack of statistical data on the health of detainees (art. 11). The State party should take effective measures to keep under systematic review all places of detention, including existing and available health services. Furthermore, the State party should take prompt measures to ensure that all instances of deaths in custody are independently investigated and that those responsible for such deaths resulting from torture, ill-treatment or wilful negligence are prosecuted. The Committee would appreciate a report on the outcome of such investigations, where completed, and about what penalties and remedies were provided. Administrative detention, including “re-education through labour” (13) The Committee reiterates its previous recommendation to the State party to consider abolishing all forms of administration detention (A/55/44, para. 127). The Committee remains concerned at the extended use of all forms of administrative detention, including “re-education through labour”, for individuals who have never had their case tried in court, nor the possibility of challenging their administrative detention. It is also concerned with the failure to investigate allegations of torture and other ill-treatment in “re-education through labour” (RTL) facilities, in particular against members of certain religious and ethnic minority groups. While the State party has indicated that the RTL system has recently been reformed and that further reform of the system is currently being envisaged, the Committee is concerned with repeated delays, despite calls from Chinese scholars to abolish the system (arts. 2 and 11). The State party should immediately abolish all forms of administrative detention, including “re-education through labour”. The State party should provide more information, including current statistics, on those currently subject to administrative detention, the reasons for their detention, the means of challenging such detention and the safeguards put in place to prevent torture and ill-treatment in RTL facilities. 19