E/CN.4/1994/31 page 46 (security brigades) and the State Security Investigations (SSI) police throughout the country. Official complaints lodged by lawyers with the Procurator General’s Office regarding torture reportedly remain without response or apparent investigation. 210. The Special Rapporteur was also informed that for the last three years the SSI has illegally used camps of the Central Security Forces (CSF) in the south of the country as centres for the detention and torture of detainees suspected of belonging to Islamist groups, with the aim of forcing them to give information or confess to charges against them, or as a form of punishment. The following camps were mentioned in particular: the Abnoub camp, on the eastern bank of the Nile, opposite the village of Assara, near Assiut city; the Qena camp, located in the vicinity of the Sawam’a area, 6 km from Qena city; the Fayyoum camp, in the Kahafah region, 15 km from Fayyoum city; and the Red Sea camp in Hurghada city, close to the Dahar police station. According to the reports no presidential decree has been issued setting up these camps (which are considered military zones) as special prisons, neither do they belong to the other categories of prisons established by Law 396 of 1956 on the organization of prisons, and as such they do not fall under the competence of the Prisons Authority responsible for the implementation of the statutes and decisions on the organization of prisons. Moreover, the camps are reportedly not subject to judicial supervision, lack official records in which the detention orders are registered, and detainees held in them are denied any contact with lawyers or family. 211. The methods of torture prevalent at the CSF camps are reportedly the same as those used in SSI offices. They range from beating, whipping and hanging in awkward positions to the application of electric shocks to sensitive parts of the body, both directly and indirectly, by immersing the victim in water and passing an electrical current through it, as well as sexual abuse and threats of rape. The persons referred to in the following paragraphs were reported to have been tortured in these camps. 212. Mohamed Bakri el-Sheik was arrested in 1990 and accused of setting fire to a video club. He was detained at the CSF camp in Abnoub and reportedly tortured during a week with beatings, hanging in awkward positions, electric shocks and sexual abuse. 213. Ossama Bahey-Edin Mahmoud was arrested on 11 November 1991 and taken to the SSI offices in Assiut, where he allegedly was beaten. After one day he was transferred to the CSF camp in Abnoub, where he was held in a dark, humid cell without ventilation. From there he was reportedly taken to the camp hospital, blindfolded and handcuffed, and given electric shocks to sensitive parts of his body while suspended naked from a doorpost. 214. Moustafa Seddik Ibrahim and Gamil Hassan Metwalli, were arrested on 2 January 1992 by the SSI and taken to SSI offices, where they were reportedly beaten and doused with ice-cold water, blindfolded and handcuffed. After two days they were taken to the Abnoub CSF camp hospital, where they were reportedly exposed to severe beating, hanging in complex positions, electric shocks and sexual assault.