E/CN.4/1994/31 page 19 Urgent appeals 68. The Special Rapporteur sent an urgent appeal to the Government on 21 April 1993 concerning Joseph Bangurambona, a representative of the Front for Democracy in Burundi for the Bujumbura rural region, arrested on 29 March 1993 by members of the Police Spéciale de Roulage. Fears were expressed that he might be subjected to torture. Cameroon Information transmitted to the Government 69. On 10 June 1993 the Special Rapporteur advised the Government that he had received information according to which although the Penal Code proscribed torture, rendered inadmissible in court evidence obtained thereby and prohibited public servants from using force against any person, the security forces continued to inflict severe beatings and other ill-treatment on detainees. Methods of torture included beating on the soles of the feet with an iron bar or whipping with a reinforced rubber tube. Treatment of prisoners in the penitentiary system was poor, especially outside of major urban areas. Prisoners were routinely chained in their cells and received inadequate medical attention and food. At Tchollire II prison these conditions reportedly caused at least 40 deaths among the inmates between 1990 and 1992. 70. Sanctions against those responsible were reportedly unknown, although government officials maintained that they faced administrative punishments which were not made public. Investigations were rare because abused persons frequently feared reprisals against themselves and their families if they lodged a complaint. 71. According to the reports, abuses worsened in North West Province following the imposition of a two-month-long state of emergency on 27 October 1992. Several hundred people were reportedly arrested in Bamenda and severely beaten at the headquarters of the Brigade mixte mobile (BMM) or the Gendarmerie Legion. The individual cases described in the following paragraphs were transmitted to the Government. 72. Ghandi Che Ngawa was reportedly arrested on 9 November at his Bamenda office and taken to the BMM, where he was allegedly suspended by his arms and legs from an iron bar and severely beaten. Four days later he was transferred to the Military Hospital, apparently with a swollen and bruised body and with some of his toenails missing. He died a week later from his injuries. Five other detainees were also transferred to the Military Hospital at the same time as Ghandi Che Ngawa. They had reportedly been beaten daily at the BMM and given electric shocks. 73. Rose Ngo Sona, a nursing mother, was stripped naked and severely beaten by a group of soldiers who broke into her house in Bamenda on 28 October in order to arrest her brother, Barrister Sendze.