CCPR/C/130/D/2405/2014 5.5 The author submits that, even though the State party has admitted the existence of torture in the country, no police officer has ever been convicted of torture despite numerous allegations made by participants in the events of 2010 in southern Kyrgyzstan. Author’s additional comments 6.1 On 29 March 2015, the author informed the Committee that, on 27 March 2015, the Osh provincial department of the National Security Committee had conducted a search of the offices of the Bir Duyno Kyrgyzstan human rights movement, where the author’s lawyer works, and also at the places of residence of the lawyer and his colleagues. During the search, the authorities seized several items including laptops, memory cards, voice recorders and disks, which contained information about criminal cases the lawyers were working on. The laptops also contained information relating to individual communications submitted by the lawyers to the Committee, including the author’s communication. The author submits that the searches constituted grave violations of domestic and international law. 6.2 On 30 March 2015, the Special Rapporteur on new communications and interim measures requested the State party to make sure that no reprisals were taken against the author, his family, witnesses and representatives as a result of the submission of the author’s communication to the Committee. State party’s additional observations on the merits 7.1 In a note verbale dated 8 July 2015, the State party provided additional observations on the merits. According to the State party, the Prosecutor General’s Office has determined that the author was brought to the Suleyman-Too police station at 9 p.m. on 5 July 2011, that torture was used to obtain his confession and that he was officially detained at 11 p.m. on 6 July 2011 when he was sent by an investigator to the Osh city temporary detention facilities. 7.2 The State party submits that the investigation of the author’s allegations of torture was transferred to another investigator in the Osh city prosecutor’s office on 21 October 2011 and its overall duration was formally extended to four months on 22 November 2011. The author and his co-defendant both denied having been tortured in their affidavits during the initial inquiry by the prosecutor’s office. The author’s co-defendant refused to undergo a forensic medical examination, while the author’s examination revealed four small cuts on his forearm. Later, however, both men changed their testimonies and claimed to have been tortured by the police, but the author’s co-defendant retracted his allegations of torture. Thus, on 9 December 2011, the prosecutor’s office made a decision to drop the charges of torture against all four police officers for lack of evidence. 7.3 The State party recalls the charges against the author, as well as the judicial procedures that were carried out upon investigation of his allegations of torture against the police officers, as submitted in its note verbale dated 27 December 2014. The State party notes that all of the author’s claims have been examined by numerous courts and appropriately addressed in accordance with existing domestic law. State party’s additional observations 8.1 In a note verbale dated 24 July 2015, the State party provided information on the search conducted of the offices of the Bir Duyno Kyrgyzstan human rights movement. The State party submits that, on 25 March 2015, two officers of the Migration Service of Kyrgyzstan requested the Osh city police department to take action against Umar Farouk, a national of the United States of America, who was allegedly collecting information on migration in the region. On the same day, the police detained Mr. Farouk and, after searching him, seized his personal electronic equipment, two procedural documents issued by the provincial department of the National Security Committee charging two local men with inciting inter-ethnic and religious hatred, various texts on the Islamic religion and business cards of the author’s lawyer and his colleague. It was determined that Mr. Farouk had introduced himself to others as a journalist working for various foreign mass media outlets and collected information on the religious, inter-ethnic and cross-border situation in the south of the country. However, he was not accredited as a foreign journalist by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as required by law. 6