E/CN.4/1997/7 page 30 advanced purpose, namely, to elicit information, implicitly by breaking the will of the detainees to resist yielding up the desired information. The Special Rapporteur concurs with the view of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, reaffirming the position of the Committee against Torture, that “an immediate end should be put to current interrogation practices and all victims of such practices should be granted access to appropriate rehabilitation and compensation measures” and that “interrogation procedures be published in full so that they are both transparent and seen to be consistent with the standards of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment” (E/CN.4/1996/18, para. 36). The Special Rapporteur appreciates the responses of the Government and is aware of the grave challenges posed by politically motivated terrorist activities, but, as the Government itself acknowledges, these cannot justify torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Italy 122. On 10 October 1996 the Special Rapporteur informed the Government that he had received information to the effect that persons suspected of having committed offences under the ordinary law or during identity checks were sometimes ill-treated by police officers when they were arrested. In most cases this ill-treatment occurred in the street, during the arrest and the first 24 hours of detention, and therefore before the person arrested had seen a lawyer or had been brought before a judge. Cases were also mentioned of police officers having brutalized persons who tried to intervene when they were ill-treating third persons. 123. Physical violence appeared to be used as a means of punishing or humiliating an individual, and certain forms of prejudice, particularly racial prejudice, seemed to be a factor in this connection. Furthermore, physical ill-treatment was allegedly accompanied in many cases by insults, particularly racial insults when the persons concerned were immigrants or Gypsies. It was said that the most common forms of ill-treatment were repeated slapping, kicking, punching and beating with a truncheon. 124. The Special Rapporteur transmitted 10 individual cases, to which the Government replied. At the Special Rapporteur's request, the Government also provided follow-up information on a number of cases transmitted in previous years. Jamaica 125. By letter dated 18 December 1995 the Government replied to the letter the Special Rapporteur had sent on 10 July 1995 regarding the conditions under which children were held in police lock-ups in the country (see E/CN.4/1996/35/Add.1, paras. 411-412). The Government stated that under the provisions of the Juveniles Act, youngsters under the age of 17 may not be detained in the same cells as adults. In practice, juveniles were sometimes held in the same building as adults, but they were not held with adults in the same cells, as alleged. Each police station was staffed with persons skilled to handle juvenile matters and there existed an educational programme aimed to inform the public of this fact and of the referral system between social