E/CN.4/2004/56/Add.2 page 20 detainee is deprived of basic guarantees, in particular access to a lawyer or to a doctor of his/her choice, and when he/she is not able to contact his/her family or friends. It is true, as emphasized by the Spanish authorities, that in accordance with the Code of Criminal Procedure a detainee may be ordered held incommunicado only by a judicial authority and with proper substantiation; however, the Special Rapporteur has received ample information from a variety of sources that in this regard judicial control is more often of a formal and administrative nature than substantive and scrutinizing. The Special Rapporteur is also concerned that someone held incommunicado is not in a position to consult in private with a lawyer of his/her choice, or even with an assigned lawyer. 61. While one monitoring body - the Committee against Torture - has expressed serious concern about the incommunicado regime in the Spanish context24 and another monitoring body, the Human Rights Committee - has stated that provisions should be made against incommunicado detention,25 and while the Commission on Human Rights has repeatedly labelled prolonged incommunicado detention as a condition that facilitates the practice of torture, recent legal developments in Spain appear to ignore international opinion in this respect and tend to go in the opposite direction. In fact, the recent Organic Laws 13/2003 of 24 October 2003 and 15/2003 of 23 November 2003, amending the Spanish Criminal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure, serve in the Special Rapporteur’s view as a consolidation of the incommunicado regime in cases relating, inter alia, to other crimes committed by common accord and in an organized manner by two or more individuals by allowing the five-day incommunicado period in police detention to be prolonged by another five days’ incommunicado detention in prisión provisional. 62. Relations between central authorities in Madrid and Basque nationalist parties and movements are strained and reflect the tendencies and tensions of increased polarization. This also tends to have a bearing on the perception of victims belonging to opposing camps, i.e. victims of acts of violence and terrorism, and victims of torture and ill-treatment. Instead of emphasizing the differences between the two categories of victims, the Special Rapporteur would draw attention to the fact that from the human rights and humanitarian perspective, all the victims have had their basic rights to life, physical integrity and security placed in serious jeopardy and all are entitled to effective redress and reparation. From the same perspective, the Special Rapporteur cannot but fully agree with views expressed and statements made to him by staff of an office that takes care of victims of terrorism to the effect that both terrorism and torture must be condemned wherever they occur, and that human rights and their guarantees, including basic guarantees for persons deprived of their liberty, are indivisible and must be applied without exception. 63. At the end of his visit to Spain the opinion of the Special Rapporteur that there must be democratic and public space to raise and discuss fundamental human rights issues such as those falling within his mandate was strengthened. Denial and silence jeopardize the values inherent in human dignity and human security. Vigilant and vocal human rights organizations and human rights defenders deserve, in Spain as everywhere else, praise and protection.