CCPR/C/115/D/2077/2011 family. On 11 March 2011, the author and his family were evicted from their house, presumably following pressure from the police on the owner of the house, and forced to move to a different neighbourhood. 2.10 The author also claims to have received anonymous telephone calls with death threats, including on 11 July 2011, which he reported to the police the following day. On 14 July 2011, he was summoned to the police station to discuss his report about the threatening calls. The author and his wife arrived at the station at around 10 p.m. Upon their arrival, the inspector announced: “These are the people that filed a complaint against the police”. The author argued with the officers and was placed in an empty room; his wife was slapped on the face, beaten and later handcuffed and placed in a cell. The author and his wife were insulted with foul language and threatened with death. Since the author was not handcuffed, he left the police station and contacted the Centre for Victims of Torture, Nepal, which in turn contacted the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Nepal (OHCHR-Nepal). A medical doctor from the Centre visited the author’s wife that same day. She was still handcuffed in the cell and had visible bruises on her wrists and face. Also that day, two human rights officers from OHCHR-Nepal arrived at the police station and held separate conversations with the inspector, the author and the author’s wife. They requested that the author’s wife be visited by a doctor. The inspector stated that if Ms. S. apologized to him in front of OHCHR-Nepal, she could be released, otherwise, “she would be charged for insulting a police officer”. The OHCHR-Nepal officers explained that it was not their mandate to force an apology but to ensure that Ms. S. was treated humanely. The officers left the station and, shortly thereafter, the author and his wife were released without charges but warned by the inspector that “they should not have exaggerated and alerted the international community without reason”. On 15 July 2011, the author and his wife underwent a medical examination at the premises of the Centre for Victims of Torture, Nepal and were diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. The author claims that the lives of the members of his family and the life of their legal representative are in great danger, because they continue to be harassed and threatened by the police. They live in constant fear, with no possibility of denouncing these acts. 2.11 The author recalls that the Committee has established that the exhaustion of local remedies can only be required insofar as such remedies appear to be effective in the given case and are de facto available to the author.3 The author claims that he has availed himself of all the remedies offered to him within the domestic legislation to obtain compensation, even if grossly inadequate to his case. He states that under Nepalese law, a criminal investigation can start only after the registration of a first information report, which can only be submitted when it is related to one of the crimes listed in Schedule 1 of the State Cases Act of 1992. Since torture has not been criminalized in Nepal, it cannot fall within the crimes for which it is permitted to file a first information report. Neither could such a report be registered for acts that may constitute elements of torture, such as abuse of power, injuries, assault and threats, even if they are criminalized under domestic legislation. The author also states that the existence of the Compensation relating to Torture Act hinders the possibility to start an action to seek criminal prosecution. Consequently, there are no remedies available to him to begin a criminal prosecution for torture or other forms of abuse. To obtain compensation, the author has submitted his case to all three judicial instances available in Nepal under the Compensation relating to Torture Act. The Act, however, is not a legislative measure that provides for criminal proceedings; it offers only disciplinary action, a remedy inappropriate for the crime of torture. In the author’s case, even that inadequate remedy is ineffective, since the sanction against the offender was not 3 The author refers, inter alia, to communication No. 1588/2007, Benaziza v. Algeria, Views adopted on 26 July 2010, para. 8.3. 5