E/CN.4/1994/31 page 79 (a) Sophia Nkosana was arrested on about 17 April 1992 and held for about five days before being released without charge. While she was in custody at police headquarters in Lilongwe she was reported to have been stripped naked, beaten, poked with a cattle prod and placed in a cell smeared with excrement. (b) Samuel Mkandawire and Kenneth Govati, student union officials, were arrested in Blantyre on 17 March 1992. They were among a group of approximately 75 students arrested by the police at the polytechnic in response to a demonstration and taken to Chichiri prison and Chilomoni and Ndirande police posts, where they were beaten. Samuel Mkandawire and Kenneth Govati were also alleged to have been tortured by having their genitals squeezed. (c) Chakufwa Chihana, Secretary General of the Southern African Trades Union Coordination Council (SATUCC), was arrested on 6 April 1992 and taken to Mikuyu prison, a maximum security prison in Zomba. He was put in an extremely small cell, only the size of his body, where the window had been deliberately blocked off. The first night the warders put a wild cat in the cell and, for almost one month, he was held in leg irons. Malaysia Information transmitted to the Government on cases included in previous reports 372. On 12 November 1991 the Special Rapporteur sent an urgent appeal to the Government concerning Aaron Cohen Shelton, reported to have been sentenced in September 1991 to life imprisonment and ordered to be whipped six times under Malaysia’s Dangerous Drugs Act. 373. On 5 August 1993 the Government replied that the sentence of whipping had been carried out on 12 December 1991. Whipping had been enforced since 1975 under the above-mentioned Act. It should not be viewed as inhumane or degrading, but in relation to the seriousness and gravity of the crime committed against society and national security. Aaron Cohen Shelton had been charged with possession of heroin and found guilty after the due process of law as provided for by the Malaysian legal system. He had been given every opportunity for a fair and just hearing. The sentence was in accordance and consistent with a law passed by the Parliament freely elected by the people of the country. 374. On 21 August 1992 the Special Rapporteur sent an urgent appeal to the Government on behalf of a group of 43 Acehnese asylum-seekers who were occupying the UNHCR premises in Kuala Lumpur because they had been threatened with being forcibly returned to Indonesia. Fears were expressed that, if this happened, they would be at risk of being detained upon arrival and tortured. 375. On 5 August 1993 the Government replied that beginning in June 1991, several groups of Acehnese totalling 290 had landed on Malaysian shores claiming political asylum and refugee status. They had been detained at various immigration detention centres in keeping with the Malaysian laws