E/CN.4/1997/7/Add.2 page 24 92. The Special Rapporteur appreciated the great efforts deployed by the Government of Pakistan, especially its Ministry for Human Rights, to permit him to have most of the meetings he sought, and to visit places of detention and to have unmonitored conversations with persons deprived of liberty in those places. Nevertheless, he must draw attention to the refusal to permit him to enter an unrecognized place of detention on the outskirts of Islamabad, run by the Federal Intelligence Agency. 93. The transformation of the Human Rights Cell responsible to the Prime Minister into the Ministry for Human Rights was controversial in Pakistan, but can be seen as a potentially positive development. However, its lack of powers to require the provision of legal redress to victims of human rights violations and its apparent lack of authority as compared with other ministries and provincial governments responsible for law enforcement agencies and the administration of justice, mean that judgement has to be suspended on its long-term effectiveness. 94. The Abolition of the Punishment of Whipping Act, 1996, is a landmark development for which the Government of Pakistan should be congratulated. It not only promises to put an end to most, if not all, judicial sentences of corporal punishment, it has also squarely described corporal punishment as "violative of human dignity". This description is also applicable to the remaining lawful corporal punishment, namely, as a judicial punishment for hadd and as a prison disciplinary sanction. 95. As the fiftieth anniversary of independence approaches (1997), the use of fetters in jails, other than for the purposes contemplated by the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, is long overdue for abolition. The Special Rapporteur believes that the clumsy attempts to conceal their use in the jails he visited can be interpreted as indirect evidence that the Government no longer finds the practice defensible. Abolition would also deprive the institutional personnel of an important means of arbitrariness, repression and corruption. 96. Torture, including rape, and similar cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment are rife in Pakistan, although those with important family, political or international connections are somewhat less at risk of the most extreme forms of torture. The 1994 amendment to the Criminal Procedure Code, a positive initiative in itself, does not appear to have guaranteed that women held by the police will not be raped. Torture is most frequently used to secure confessions or information relating to suspected crimes. It can also be used, like arrest and detention themselves, as a means of extorting bribes. 97. The use of torture, especially in respect of persons held in connection with the investigation of serious crimes, notably of a political nature, is facilitated by the existence of numerous national and provincial law enforcement bodies which cooperate in holding and questioning the detained persons who can be transferred from agency to agency and place to place. Some of the places of detention are not officially recognized. By these means, strict, well-conceived guarantees against abuse are circumvented. When death follows the torture, or is otherwise inflicted on detained persons,