E/CN.4/1997/7 page 26 Estakio José Fernandes and Kamilio Alegria, were allegedly beaten, hung from their arms, burned with cigarettes and immersed in a water tank with blocks of ice roped to their bodies. One month later he was released. On 3 February 1996 he was arrested again in Dili. At the police station he was interrogated about his participation in a demonstration, punched, beaten with a wooden stick, kicked on his forehead and burned with cigarettes. After his release, Florindo dos Santos fled to Jakarta where, on 16 April 1996, he entered the Embassy of Germany as described in the case of Antonio Campos referred to above. In that incident he also was heavily beaten with wooden and iron sticks until he fainted. At the KODIM barracks and the police station he suffered no further ill-treatment and on 20 April he was released. The Government informed the Special Rapporteur that Florindo dos Santos had been arrested on 11 July 1993 on charges of involvement as a liaison for armed separatists. He was released on 18 July 1996 and had not been arrested since that time. 108. By letters dated 20 October 1996 and 1 November 1996 the Government informed the Special Rapporteur that it considered that the decision by the Government of Portugal to invite the Special Rapporteur to the country had been triggered by Portugal's hostile attitude towards Indonesia and had not been based on a sincere desire to promote and protect human rights. It was merely a part of a concerted and systematic effort to besmirch and discredit Indonesia. This hostility against Indonesia was shared by those East Timorese who had forced their way into embassies in Jakarta in the months before or during the sessions of the United Nations General Assembly, the Commission on Human Rights and the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. The timing of actions provided clues as to the real motive of their deeds. Indonesia did not intend to bar them from leaving the country, but they had no well-founded fear of persecution. In addition, those East Timorese youths who had previously fled to Portugal had been students in scholarship programmes in various provinces who had failed to graduate. As they were faced with shame, an urgent need for resources and an uncertain future, they had opted for the popular shortcut of fleeing to Portugal with a fake claim of persecution. The reason that Portugal, as opposed to other foreign embassies, had provided them with refugee status was because only Portugal would benefit politically from such a situation. 109. The Government also expressed concern that the Special Rapporteur had used the term “oral testimonies” to refer to the above-described allegations, as it was not clear whether the statements of the persons interviewed had been made under oath. Even if the statements had been made under oath, taking such evidence would be beyond the mandate of the Special Rapporteur, as his post had never been charged to act as a court of law. Furthermore, using the term “oral testimonies” could lead one to equate the work of the Special Rapporteur with that of common NGOs, which most if not all of the time had claimed to secure testimonies which had later turned out to be mere allegations. Moreover, the allegations could not be true, because the ICRC had had unlimited access to places of detention in East Timor since 1979. 110. To sum up, the Special Rapporteur transmitted to the Government information on 26 individual cases, including the 10 mentioned above. The Government replied to 23 of these cases and to 27 cases which had been transmitted by the Special Rapporteur in 1994 and 1995. The Special