A/71/298 constitute ill-treatment and may induce sleep deprivation, impaired decision -making and a desire to admit anything in order to bring the questioning to an end. 11 42. Coercive techniques, even when not amounting to torture or ill-treatment, are means to the same ends, administered by State agents to confirm their presumption of guilt. They are likely to produce faulty information and give rise to conditions conducive to the use of torture or ill-treatment. Strengthening protection against coercive questioning methods and championing an interviewing model based on the principle of presumption of innocence are accordingly key to preventing mistreatment during questioning and enhancing authorities ’ effectiveness. 43. It is well established that the term “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” must be interpreted to extend the widest possible protection against abuses (see the Body of Principles). When persons are deprived of liberty, the prohibition of torture and ill-treatment overlaps with and is supplemented by the principle of humane treatment of detainees (see A/68/295). The European Court of Human Rights, in Bouyid v. Belgium, has highlighted the inherent link between concepts of degrading treatment or punishment and human dignity, finding that treatment that “humiliates or debases an individual, show[s] a lack of respect for or diminish[es] his or her human dignity, or arouses feelings of fear, anguish or inferiority capable of breaking an individual’s moral and physical resistance” may be characterized as degrading. Any act by law enforcement that diminishes a person’s human dignity, including the use of physical force when not strictly necessitated by his or her conduct, violates the prohibition of torture and ill-treatment. 44. Depending on their degree, severity, chronicity and type, undue psychological pressure and manipulative practices may themselves amount to inhuman or degrading treatment. This may be the case, among others, when certain techniques are used in combination, over a lengthy period or against vulnerable persons, including children, persons with psychosocial disabilities, persons who do not understand or adequately speak the language of the interviewing officers and other persons who may be particularly sensitive to coercion owing to their specific needs or physical or emotional development. 45. International and regional human rights mechanisms have to date developed an extensive body of jurisprudence on practices that amount to physical or psychological torture or ill-treatment, including but not limited to punching, kicking, beatings, electrocution, forms of suffocation, burns, use of firearms, mock executions, threats of reprisals against relatives, death threats, restraints in very painful conditions, rape, sexual abuse and humiliation, sleep deprivation, prolonged stress positions, prolonged solitary confinement, incommunicado detention, sensory deprivation, exposure to extreme temperatures or loud music for prolonged periods, dietary adjustments, blindfolding and hooding during questioning, prolonged questioning sessions, removal of clothing, deprivation of all comfort and religious items and exploitation of phobias during questioning (see A/HRC/13/39/Add.5; A/52/44; CCPR/C/USA/CO/3/Rev.1; CAT/C/USA/CO/2; and CAT/C/KAZ/CO/3). Deplorably, such illegal methods have often been combined with poor conditions of detention — which can alone amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in themselves — to exert additional psychological pressure on detainees to reveal __________________ 11 12/25 For example, Christian Meissner, Christopher E. Kelly and Skye A. Woestehoff, “Improving the effectiveness of suspect interrogations”, Annual Review of Law and Social Science, vol. 11 (2015). 16-13568