E/CN.4/1998/38/Add.2 page 4 participate in civil actions in favour of public security in situations which did not require the suspension of guarantees, provided that the Constitution and the laws were strictly observed. 10. In other cases, arrests followed by interrogation under torture are carried out by unidentified individuals, who are often masked and who take the victims to places they are unable to identify because they have been blindfolded. However, from the type of the interrogation and behaviour, detainees are led to suspect that their captors are linked to the security forces. The sources also mentioned cases in which civilians acted alongside public agents or with their acquiescence (white guards, hired gunmen, etc.), particularly in the State of Chiapas. 11. The Special Rapporteur also received information, including direct testimonies, concerning attacks on street children. A non-governmental organization working with street children in the Federal District reported that between April 1996 and August 1997, 27 attacks had been documented on street children and young people and on educators working with them; these attacks had been carried out in the Observatorio subway station area by members of the police force. Twelve of the attacks consisted of beatings, while eight involved threats and two sexual harassment and/or abuse. These abuses apparently took place either as part of action to oust the street children from a specific area of the city in order to improve public safety, or in the course of crime investigations. In 19 of the cases complaints were lodged with the Public Prosecutor's Office and the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH). By August 1997 no investigation had yet been completed. The Special Rapporteur also received information that 14 children had been beaten and threatened with death on 7 December 1997 by 2 policemen and 2 civilians in the Observatorio area of the Federal District (DF). 12. As can be seen from the annex, the most commonly used methods of torture are indiscriminate beatings, attempted suffocation by placing a plastic bag over the victim's head or keeping his head under water, pouring large quantities of liquid into the mouth and nose, hanging by the neck or limbs and applying electric shocks. In the majority of the cases reported, the victims had their hands tied and were blindfolded during the torture and interrogation, which meant that they were unable to identify their whereabouts. The torture was accompanied by threats, including death threats, against the victim and his family. 13. The Special Rapporteur received a considerable amount of information on torture practised in politically motivated situations, for example, on peasant and social activists or militants of opposition parties, and particularly on persons detained in conflict zones, usually rural areas, in the course of combined police and military operations or simply military actions against subversive groups. Many allegations were made of torture of this nature in the States of Guerrero and Oaxaca, at any rate in 1996 and 1997. 14. It was reported that since the People's Revolutionary Army (EPR) had appeared in the State of Guerrero in June 1996, combined police and military operations had been intensified, with weapons searches and a hunt for suspected EPR members. These operations have led to serious abuses of