E/CN.4/2004/56/Add.2 page 8 in or relation with an armed group, terrorists or rebels. This extension shall in all cases be requested within the initial 48 hours of police detention and be authorized by a competent judge within the following 24 hours. Therefore, individuals suspected of these crimes may be held in police custody for up to five days. Article 520 bis (2) of CCP further provides that a judge may authorize that the police detention of these individuals be incommunicado. 18. In accordance with the law, following the police detention, once the criminal procedures are initiated and before the competent court issues a verdict, the judge may order that a detainee be placed in prisión provisional. This procedure is regulated by CCP as recently amended by Organic Law 15/2003 of 25 November 2003. According to its new article 509, upon judicial authorization, individuals detained on suspicion of the crimes listed in article 384 bis of CCP as well as those detained in relation to other crimes committed by common accord with and in an organized manner by two or more individuals may be held in incommunicado detention for up to another five days in prisión provisional. It is the Special Rapporteur’s understanding that this category of detainees may therefore be kept incommunicado for up to 10 consecutive days (5 in police custody and 5 in prisión provisional). In addition, under new article 509 of CCP, the competent judicial authority may order another incommunicado detention, which cannot be longer than three days. 19. The Special Rapporteur notes that new article 509 includes in the category of individuals who may be subjected to incommunicado detention in prisión provisional individuals detained in relation to “other crimes committed by common accord and in an organized manner by two or more individuals”. 20. Pursuant to article 527 of CCP, individuals in incommunicado detention are barred from enjoying the following rights: access to facilities or activities consistent with the nature of their detention; visits from a religious minister, a doctor, relatives or advisers; correspondence and communication; freedom from exceptional security measures; access to a lawyer of their own choice; notification of the fact of their detention and the place in which they are being held to their relatives; and private consultation with their lawyers upon completion of the procedures in which the lawyers have intervened. 21. It appears from article 510 of CCP as amended by Organic Laws 13/2003 and 15/2003, that incommunicado detainees in prisión provisional would be placed in a less strict isolation regime than when in police detention. In addition, as mentioned below, the recent amendment of CCP through Organic Law 15/2003 states that, if they so request, incommunicado detainees may be examined by a second forensic doctor. Protocol for the coordination of assistance to individuals held in incommunicado detention (2003)9 22. In 2003 the Department of the Interior of the Basque Government, in consultation with the Department of Justice, Labour and Social Security and the Department of Health of the Basque Government, adopted a number of additional safeguards, known as the Protocol, to be applied by the Ertzaintza (Autonomous Basque) police in regard to individuals in incommunicado detention. It deals with the coordination of activities of the Basque police, the Basque health service and the Basque forensic institute for detainees. Additional safeguards include tighter medical checks of the condition of detainees, including the introduction of