E/CN.4/1993/26 page 41 170. Torture has not been limited to suspected Islamist activists, however. It has come to include among its victims persons suspected of belonging to Nasserist and Communist organizations, Christians accused of enticing Muslims to convert and Muslims accused of converting to Christianity. Torture victims have also included journalists, lawyers, workers, doctors, engineers, university school students and school children. Palestinian residents and visitors have also been among the victims of torture in Egypt. 171. Along with the political cases, Egyptian citizens are reportedly exposed on a daily basis to inhuman and degrading treatment in police stations. Torture and mistreatment have become routine police procedure in the investigation of ordinary crimes and the interrogation of suspects. 172. Methods of torture include the stubbing of burning cigarette ends into the bodies of the victims, beatings with whips and leather straps as well as with solid objects, hanging in extremely awkward positions for long periods resulting occasionally in temporary or permanent paralysis, and the application of electric shocks to the genitals and to other sensitive parts of the body. Torture is normally accompanied by other forms of abuse, including verbal abuse and threats to kill the victim, rape him or rape his wife or women kinfolk. Prolonged incommunicado detention, permitted under state of emergency legislation, facilitates the practice of torture. 173. Information was received, in particular, with respect to abuses against convicted prisoners, administrative detainees and prisoners in protective custody incarcerated in the Tora prisons complex. These include imposing the whipping penalty and solitary confinement, with the latter punishment being widely practised by the Tora prisons authorities without adhering to the limits set by the law. Furthermore, prisoners are mistreated by denying them their daytime outings on the prison grounds and the visits of family members. In addition, there is a high incidence of repeated removal from prison in the middle of the night of many political prisoners, who are taken to the State Security Intelligence headquarters in Lazoughly where they are brutally tortured. Prisoners are most likely to be exposed to such treatment during the early part of their confinement. 174. Political detainees who are charged, and who claim to have been subjected to torture, may be examined by forensic medical doctors at the request of the niyaba (state procuracy) or the trial court. However, administrative detainees, held without charge or trial, usually have no opportunity to submit a complaint about their treatment to the competent authorities. 175. Medical examinations have often taken place long after the alleged torture occurred. However, in some cases forensic medical doctors have been able to conclude that physical marks on the bodies of political detainees are consistent with the methods of torture they describe and with the date on which the torture is alleged to have taken place. 176. The Special Rapporteur also received reports critizing Law 396 (1965) on the Regulation of Prisons, which in article 43, paragraph 7, allows the whipping of prisoners as a disciplinary penalty; the prisoner may be punished by being whipped not in excess of 36 lashes, and if the prisoner is under 17 years of age, the whip is replaced by a thin stick and the beating should