E/CN.4/1998/38 page 30 and expression. The Government acknowledged receipt of three urgent appeals and forwarded further information in relation to one appeal in particular. Pakistan 149. By letter dated 17 November 1997, the Special Rapporteur advised the Government that he had continued to receive reports, covering the situation under successive governments until June 1997, on the widespread use of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in Pakistan. To some extent, torture would appear to have been facilitated by existing legislation and the occurrence of unlawful detention, but the problem of impunity and effective collusion of government officials with non-State actors was also reported to constitute an important contributory factor to its existence. 150. Torture, including rape, was often said to have been used by the police to intimidate, humiliate or punish people in custody. Many victims had reportedly died as a result, often without those allegedly responsible having been brought to justice. Prisoners were frequently reported to have been denied basic facilities, including medical treatment. Despite the announced partial ban on fetters of 1996, the use of bar fetters in prison was said to have continued in practice and a recommendation for their abolition by the Law Commission in June 1997 had reportedly not yet been acted on. Whipping, although in most cases understood as abrogated by the Abolition of the Punishment of Whipping Act of 1996, reportedly remained applicable for certain offences under Islamic law. The Zina Ordinance of 1979, which prescribes punishments considered cruel, inhuman and degrading under international law, was still applicable and could, due to its evidential requirements, expose female victims of rape to the risk of being charged with an unlawful sexual relationship. Rape by influential people was said to have been ignored by the police. Victims of torture had reportedly faced problems when trying to register complaints with the police who were often said to have refused assistance. Complicity, acquiescence and indifference of government officials in practice was further said to have been claimed, in particular, by female victims of domestic violence and ill-treatment in the context of bonded labour and tribal retribution. 151. The Special Rapporteur further requested the Government, by letter dated 18 September 1997, to provide him with information on any steps taken to implement the recommendations in his 1996 mission report on Pakistan (E/CN.4/1997/7/Add.2). In his letter of 17 November 1997, he recalled the Government’s attention to this request. He expressed particular concern about reports that bar fetters and similar instruments of restraint continued to be used and requested to receive information on the measures which had been taken to terminate their use, referring, inter alia, to assurances by the Interim Government that it had ordered an end to the use of fetters in prison. 152. The Special Rapporteur also transmitted allegations of five cases, some of them collective, on behalf of seven individuals and a group of unnamed persons. He transmitted updated information on one previously submitted individual case and made one urgent appeal on behalf of one individual. Furthermore, the Special Rapporteur retransmitted allegations transmitted in 1994, 1995 and 1996 to which no reply had been received.