A/55/290 allegedly by State as well as by non-governmental forces. The Special Rapporteur recalls that all parties to armed conflicts, be they of an international character or not, are bound by humanitarian law principles which prohibit torture and other forms of cruel treatment, including mutilation. In one country, the latter reportedly included such brutal forms of torture as the amputation of limbs. Amnesties negotiated in the aftermath of armed conflict are argued to have granted impunity to State, paramilitary or non-governmental forces that in some cases have committed extreme forms of torture on children. In addition, the Special Rapporteur notes that the forcible recruitment of children into armed forces is of great concern to the Committee on the Rights of the Child. Children are said to have been forcibly recruited at a sometimes very young age, in violation of international human rights standards, and forced to carry out traumatic attacks on their own families and communities. In this respect, the Special Rapporteur encourages States to ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, adopted by the General Assembly in its resolution 54/263 of 25 May 2000, and to support the work of the Special Representative of the SecretaryGeneral on Children and Armed Conflict. C. Torture and human rights defenders 16. Over the years, the Special Rapporteur has received information regarding a significant number of cases where the victims of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment are human rights defenders. While there is no evidence to suggest that human rights defenders are generally subjected to particular forms of torture or ill-treatment applied uniquely to them owing to their status as human rights defenders, there remains nonetheless a clear and compelling need to make a separate comment on the issue. This need derives from the consideration that human rights defenders are on the front line for the defence of human rights and play a key role in the denunciation of human rights violations. The Special Rapporteur would like to stress that, like other United Nations human rights mechanisms, he relies largely on their work and information to discharge his mandate. 17. Aside from the traditional forms of repression of human rights, such as extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, arbitrary detention and torture, a large number of communications received by the Special Rapporteur concern systematic harassment of human rights defenders, their relatives or persons associated with them, aimed at preventing them from undertaking human rights activities. Threats to their physical integrity, including death threats, legal restrictions related to the existence of the organizations to which they belong or on their activities, social disqualification through propaganda, misinformation and intimidation, judicial persecution through fabricated criminal charges, denial of access to means of livelihood and of social services, constant surveillance, denial of identity documents or absence of due protection by public authorities from threats originating from non-State actors are among the most commonly reported ways of preventing human rights defenders from carrying out their activities. 18. While the Special Rapporteur intervened on several occasions on behalf of human rights defenders who were said to be at risk of torture or other forms of ill-treatment or who had allegedly been subjected to torture, he also intervened on behalf of human rights defenders who were not directly at any risk of torture, but who were prevented by various means not falling within his mandate from providing legal and/or humanitarian assistance to torture victims. In the former case, he mainly intervened in conjunction with the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the independence of judges and lawyers. 19. The Convention against Torture refers to the duty of States parties to ensure that any individual who alleges he has been subjected to torture in any territory under its jurisdiction has the right to complain ... and that the complainant and witnesses are protected against all ill-treatment or intimidation as a consequence of his complaint or any evidence given (article 13). The Special Rapporteur believes that this right would be seriously impaired if human rights defenders are prevented from advocating on behalf of torture victims. In that context, the Special Rapporteur sent urgent appeals on behalf of lawyers representing torture victims who were said to have been threatened or harassed in connection with pending legal proceedings regarding alleged cases of torture. 20. The Special Rapporteur would also like to remind Governments that in its resolution 2000/22 on cooperation with representatives of United Nations human rights bodies, the Commission urged them to refrain from all acts of intimidation or reprisal against 5