A/HRC/22/53/Add.1 professional performance of investigative officers is assessed by their success in identifying perpetrators and solving crimes, which puts them under additional pressure to deliver. 32. In his report of 2011, the Ombudsman acknowledged that torture remained a challenging problem in Tajikistan. In a ruling issued in 2010, the European Court of Human Rights stated that “the Court is ready to accept that ill-treatment of detainees is an enduring problem in Tajikistan”. 7 Between 2003 and 2011, the Human Rights Committee found that the State had violated its obligations with regard to the prohibition of torture and other illtreatment in 17 cases concerning a total of 26 victims. Violations were reported in police stations, pretrial and temporary detention facilities at the Department for the Fight against Organized Crime and in detention facilities run by the State Committee for National Security. 8 It also found that victims had been put under pressure by authorities after filing applications with the Committee. Testimonies received by the Special Rapporteur indicated that cases of torture or other ill-treatment mostly arose secretly at the early stages of apprehension, during the first hours of informal interrogation and incommunicado detention in facilities run by the Ministry of the Interior. Such cases also reportedly arise in temporary and pretrial detention facilities run by the State Committee for National Security and the Department for the Fight against Organized Crime. Mistreatment at this phase of detention is normally of a short duration, consisting mainly in trauma caused by electric shock, asphyxia, beating with truncheons, verbal insults and rape (or threats of rape). 33. The Special Rapporteur heard numerous allegations from a number of defendants tried in Khujand in relation to their alleged membership in outlawed religious movements, that pointed to a pattern of incommunicado detention, the use of electric shock and of cold and hot water with the purpose of extracting confessions, incriminating other defendants or obtaining information about accomplices. 34. Testimonies showed that only those who had influential connections were immune from beatings or other forms of intimidation during the first hours of detention. Migrant workers returning from the Russian Federation, members of Islamic movements and Islamist groups or parties, and persons accused of being linked to Islamist extremists may be at particular risk of torture and ill-treatment by the Sixth Department of the State Committee for National Security under the pretext of the fight against terrorism and threats to national security. The Special Rapporteur observed that many cases went unreported because detainees and their families do not report cases of torture and mistreatment out of fear of reprisal, an adverse impact on the criminal case or further mistreatment. Instances of torture are often not reported to the lawyer at early stages of investigation owing to threats or false promises given by investigators. Witnesses are reportedly threatened or intimidated so that they retract their testimony. The Special Rapporteur learned that there were no State-supported specialized rehabilitation services for victims, nor were such programmes currently envisaged by the Government. B. Safeguards and prevention 35. Despite the newly introduced Code of Criminal Procedure providing for procedural safeguards, in practice there is a serious lack of effective safeguards afforded to persons deprived of their liberty during the first hours of detention, including the registration of detention within three hours of his or her arrival in the police station (art. 94.1), the right to 7 8 8 Khodzhayev vs. Russia, May 05 2010, para. 105. Official Records of the General Assembly, Sixty-seventh Session, Supplement No. 40 (A/67/40), vol. I, chap. VI, sect. A.