Steps taken in previous years Situation in during visit in 2005 (See A/HRC/4/33/Add.2, A/HRC/7/3/Add.2, Information received in the (See E/CN.4/2006/6/Add.6) A/HRC/10/44/Add.5 and A/HRC/16/52/Add.2) reporting period Xiaobo, among others. It is alleged that the Government campaign of ―transformation‖ of Falun Gong practitioners in detention, aimed at forcing them to submit and renounce their beliefs, and similar efforts to coerce Tibetans to denounce the Dalai Lama, are allegedly core features of the Government‘s campaign against those groups they perceive as subversive, and should also be viewed as a form of mental torture. 1) Reportedly, the range of the purposes of torture is restrictive. Chinese laws and regulations refer most often to torture for the purpose of coercing a confession or collecting information, as in Article 43 of the Criminal Procedure Law which prohibits the extortion of confessions or obtaining evidence through torture. This reportedly does not extend to the use of torture for other purposes including ―coercing him or a third person‖ which in the Chinese context would cover practices such as coercing an individual to abandon his or her beliefs, religious or otherwise, nor for ―any other reason based on discrimination of any kind.‖ It is alleged that this would, for instance, exclude the mental and physical torture aimed at coercing individual detainees to renounce their faith or denounce their religious leaders, such as the ―transformation‖ of Falun Gong practitioners in detention, or coercion of Tibetan detainees to denounce the Dalai Lama. According to testimonies received by NGOs, the mental torture associated with this process is, for some individuals, worse than the physical torture they may have to endure. Reportedly, provisions criminalising torture and other ill-treatment in Chinese law are restrictive in that they do not include temporary or quasi-governmental actors or non-governmental actors operating with the complicity, consent or acquiescence of a public official. This reportedly precludes the expanding use A/HRC/19/61/Add.3 6 Recommendation (E/CN.4/2006/6/Add.6)