E/CN.4/1998/38 page 21 counter-insurgency operations with a view to bringing such practices into line with international standards is the minimum measure that should be undertaken by the Government as a matter of urgency. Georgia 98. In a letter of 5 February 1997, the Special Rapporteur informed the Government that he had received reports indicating that most persons detained for political reasons and some persons detained in ordinary criminal cases in Georgia were subjected to torture or other ill-treatment during detention and interrogation. Torture and ill-treatment were reportedly used to obtain "confessions" or extract other information from detainees. The methods of torture and ill-treatment reported included hanging upside down; scalding with hot water; extraction of fingernails or toenails; application of electric shocks; systematic beating, sometimes resulting in fractured bones or broken teeth; and issuing of threats that members of the detainee’s family would be killed or tortured. Courts were said generally to refuse to exclude evidence, including "confessions", repudiated by defendants as having been obtained through torture, and to fail to investigate such claims of torture. 99. Conditions in prisons and detention centres in the country were reportedly abusive. Prisons were said to be severely overcrowded and unsanitary, with contagious diseases such as tuberculosis and dysentery widespread. Detainees also reportedly lacked adequate food and medical treatment. 100. The Special Rapporteur also transmitted allegations concerning seven persons. Observations 101. The Special Rapporteur notes the concerns of the Committee against Torture as regards the “volume of complaints of torture, particularly related to the extraction of confessions ..., the failure to investigate claims of torture and to prosecute alleged offenders ... (and) to make proper provision for compensation, restitution and rehabilitation of victims of torture ... the grossly inadequate conditions in places of detention, including prisons ... (and) the alarming number of deaths in prison” (A/52/44, para. 120). He also stresses the Committee’s recommendations, in particular, that proposing abolition of incommunicado detention. He also notes the similar concerns expressed by the Human Rights Committee (A/52/40, paras. 240-243) and its recommendations (paras. 253-255). Germany 102. By letter dated 17 November 1997, the Special Rapporteur advised the Government that he had continued to receive allegations indicating that a number of persons had been subjected to disproportionate or unnecessary force while police officers were trying to restrain or arrest them, or to ill-treatment in police custody. Victims were said to include mostly foreigners, including asylum seekers, or members of ethnic minorities. Beating, kicking and punching were the most reported forms of ill-treatment. Criminal investigations were known to have been instituted, but their