E/CN.4/1997/7
page 21
Honduras
85.
On different dates the Special Rapporteur transmitted allegations
concerning 12 cases involving minors. The Government replied to 10 of them.
Hungary
86.
The Special Rapporteur transmitted allegations concerning four
individual cases, to which the Government provided replies. He also
transmitted an urgent appeal on behalf of four persons.
India
87.
By letter dated 16 September 1996 the Special Rapporteur advised the
Government that he had continued to receive information indicating that the
security forces in Jammu and Kashmir had tortured detainees systematically in
order to coerce them to confess to militant activity, to reveal information
about suspected militants, or to inflict punishment for suspected support or
sympathy with militants. The use of torture was said to be facilitated by the
practice of holding detainees in temporary detention centres without access to
courts, relatives or medical care. The methods of torture reported include
severe beatings, electric shocks, crushing the leg muscles with a wooden
roller, burning with heated objects and rape.
88.
The practice of incommunicado detention was said to facilitate torture.
The security forces were reported rarely to produce detainees before a
magistrate, despite their being required by law to do so within 24 hours of
detention. It was reported that since 1990 over 15,000 habeas corpus
petitions had been filed to reveal the whereabouts of detainees and the
charges against them, but that in the vast majority of these cases the
authorities had not responded to the petitions. It was further reported that
on no occasion had information been made public regarding instances of action
taken against security force personnel in Jammu and Kashmir for acts of
torture.
89.
The Special Rapporteur transmitted six individual cases and received
replies to three of these cases. He also transmitted follow-up information on
19 previously transmitted cases. The Special Rapporteur sent 2 urgent
appeals, 1 on behalf of 2 individuals and another on behalf of some
180 Bhutanese refugees staging a march through India. The Government replied
to those appeals. The Government also replied to six cases transmitted in
previous years.
Observations
90.
The Special Rapporteur is grateful for the responses of the Government
and the efforts involved in collecting such information in a large federal
State. Nevertheless, he continues to be concerned at the persistence of
allegations of torture, followed often by death in custody, and to regret the
reluctance of the Government to invite him to visit the country.
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