E/CN.4/1997/7/Add.2 page 18 B. Corporal punishment 63. At the time of the Special Rapporteur’s visit there were three types of circumstances under which physical punishment could be imposed. They were: (i) as a judicially imposed punishment for certain ordinary criminal offences; (ii) as a punishment for certain offences for which the penalty is prescribed by Islamic law; and (iii) as a punishment for breach of prison discipline. 64. As regards judicial corporal punishment for ordinary crimes, again the practice was inherited from the colonial period. Generally the crimes for which whipping was prescribed were laid down in the 1909 Whipping Act. The maximum number of lashes or "stripes", as they are candidly called, was 30 (Code of Criminal Procedure 1898, sect. 392). 65. Until the martial law period (1977-1985), the ordinary courts had in recent times refrained from imposing corporal punishment. However, with the introduction of the Hudood Ordinances in 1979, purportedly to give effect to Islamic law, there was renewed use of corporal punishment for ordinary crimes. For example, Amnesty International cites Pakistani media as reporting that, as recently as 8 October 1995, two Irishmen were flogged with five lashes in Peshawar Central Jail on conviction for smuggling hashish. Medical staff of the jail were reported to have supervised the punishment, presumably pursuant to the provisions of the Execution of the Punishment of Whipping Ordinance 1979, which superseded relevant provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code. 66. By the time of writing of the present report the Abolition of the Punishment of Whipping Act 1996 had been enacted. This legislation was proposed by the Government of Pakistan in November 1995, because the punishment of whipping was, in the words of the Bill (proposed law), "considered as violative of human dignity and ... vehemently resented". Section 3 of the Act provides: "Except in cases where the punishment of whipping is provided for as Hadd, no court shall award a sentence of whipping under any law for the time being in force." By section 4 of the new Act, the 1909 Whipping Act is repealed. 67. This positive development now makes judicial corporal punishment for ordinary crimes a historical relic and may be expected substantially to reduce the incidence of such cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments. 68. As noted, the Abolition of the Punishment of Whipping Act explicitly preserves whipping provided for as hadd. A hadd (plural hudood) is an offence laid down in the Quran, for which the penalty is also laid down in the Quran or the Sunnah. In Pakistan, the offences and penalties concerned were enacted by the martial law administration through the 1979 Islamic Hudood Ordinances. Various of these provide for corporal punishment. 69. The Hudood Ordinances both enact the pure hadd with the corresponding punishment and legislate for related offences with specified punishments (ta’zir). The hadd is normally narrowly defined and subject to strict procedural and evidentiary requirements. Where the relevant conditions for a hadd are not met, a related offence may apply. Public flogging is provided for in respect of several of the related offences; however, the Special