The Prohibition of Torture and Ill-treatment in the African Human Rights System: A HANDBOOK FOR VICTIMS AND THEIR ADVOCATES The Commission has also clarified specific acts that constitute cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. For example, it has taken the view that ‘detaining individuals without allowing them contact with their families and refusing to inform their families of the fact and place of the detention amounts to inhuman treatment of both the detainees and their families’.182 The Commission has also found certain practices in places of detention to constitute inhuman and degrading treatment, and in some cases even torture. Examples of such treatment include beatings, shackling with leg irons, handcuffs, and solitary confinement.183 Treatment in Detention The Commission elaborated on the prohibition against torture and safeguards against the arbitrary deprivation of life in the Sudan cases184 and Mauritania cases.185 In the Sudan cases, the alleged acts of torture included forcing detainees to lie on the floor, soaking them with cold water, confining groups of four detainees in cells measuring 1.8 metres in floor space by one metre in height, deliberately flooding the cells and frequently banging on the doors so as to prevent detainees from lying down, mock executions and prohibiting detainees from bathing or washing. Other acts of torture included burning detainees with cigarettes, binding them with ropes to cut off blood circulation to parts of the body, beating them severely with sticks to the point of severe laceration then treating the wounds with acid.186 Finding violations of Article 5, the Commission stated the following: Since the acts of torture alleged have not been refuted or explained by the Government, the Commission finds that such acts illustrate, jointly and severally, government responsibility for violations of the provisions of Article 5 of the African Charter.187 Allegations of torture made in the Mauritania cases, discussed in further detail in section 2.c below, included housing detainees in small, dark, underground cells, forcing them to sleep on cold floors in the desert winter at night, starving prisoners deliberately, denying them access to medical care, plunging their heads in water 182 183 184 185 186 187 52 (31 October 1998), para. 78. Reiterated in subsequent cases: ACHPR, Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum v. Zimbabwe, Comm. 245/02, para. 96; Gabriel Shumba v. Zimbabwe, Comm. No. 288/2004, 51st Ordinary Session (2 May 2012), para. 164; Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights & INTERIGHTS v. Egypt, Comm. No. 323/06, para. 187; Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights and INTERIGHTS v. Egypt, Comm. No. 334/06, 9th Extraordinary Session (1 March 2011), para 190. ACHPR, Law Office of Ghazi Suleiman v. Sudan, Comm. Nos. 222/98 & 229/98, 33rd Ordinary Session (3 May 2003), para.62. ACHPR, Krishna Achuthan (on behalf of Aleke Banda), v. Malawi, Comm. No. 64/92, para. 7. ACHPR, Amnesty International and Others v. Sudan, Comm. Nos. 48/90, 50/91, 52/91 & 89/93. ACHPR, Malawi Africa Association and Others v. Mauritania, Comm. Nos. 54/91, 61/91, 98/93, 164-169/97 & 210/98. ACHPR, Amnesty International and Others v. Sudan, Comm. Nos. 48/90, 50/91, 52/91 & 89/93. Ibid., para. 57.