E/CN.4/1995/34 page 143 745. On 15 December 1994 the Special Rapporteur transmitted an urgent appeal on behalf of Jalel Maleej, a Tunisan academic living in Paris, who was arrested on 4 December 1994 upon his arrival from France. He was reportedly being held incommunicado in garde à vue detention. Turkey Information transmitted to the Government and replies received 746. By letter dated 15 September 1994 the Special Rapporteur informed the Government that he had continued to receive reports indicating that the practice of torture in Turkey was widespread, particularly in Istanbul, Ankara, and the south-east. Torture was said to be used for the following reasons: to extract confessions, to elicit names of members of illegal organizations, to force villagers to abandon opposition to the village guard system, to intimidate detainees into becoming police informants and to punish persons informally for support of illegal organizations. The victims of such torture were often persons detained under the Anti-Terror Law and those accused of petty criminal offences. 747. The forms of torture most frequently reported were those which left little or no medical evidence: hosing with cold water, hanging by the arms or wrists bound behind the victim’s back, death threats, electric shocks, sexual assault, and food deprivation. 748. Detainees accused of offences under the Anti-Terror Law reportedly could be held incommunicado for 30 days in the 10 south-eastern provinces under emergency legislation, and for 15 days elsewhere in Turkey. Persons detained on suspicion of ordinary criminal offences could be held for up to eight days before being formally charged or released. While in police custody, detainees were said to have no right to see a doctor of their own choice, but instead could be brought before a doctor appointed by the State-run Forensic Medical Institute. It was alleged that such medical examinations were performed in a perfunctory manner, almost invariably with police officers present. Any allegation brought against a public servant in any of the provinces under emergency legislation could be blocked from judicial examination by the office of the local governor, which was responsible for police and policing. 749. The Special Rapporteur also transmitted the individual cases summarized in the following paragraphs. 750. Baki Erdog ˇan was reportedly detained on 10 August 1993 in Söke district of Aydin in western Turkey, interrogated incommunicado and severely tortured in Aydin police headquarters for 11 days. On 21 August, he was taken to hospital and died that same day. An autopsy report was said to have contained a long list of cuts and bruises on his body and to have attributed the cause of death to "respiratory insufficiency". 751. Savme Durmaz, an Assyrian Christian from Alagöz village in Mardin province near the border with the Syrian Arab Republic, and his son ¸ükrü Durmaz, aged 15, were reportedly detained on 26 October 1993 by members S of the gendarmerie force who came to their village. Their detention was said to be unacknowledged and fears were expressed that they had been tortured.