E/CN.4/2006/6/Add.6 page 38 seriously investigate and handle them, even to the point of taking the defense of the offenders. “They believed that the use of torture was just mistakes relating to work methods and was problems difficult to avoid if one wanted to do a good job. They often belittled the importance of it all. Even when there was penalty, it was lenient.” 66 The Special Rapporteur was informed, for example, that in Prison No. 4 in Urumqi, the procurators have not received a single torture complaint during the last decade. In the Tibetan Autonomous Region, he was told that no complaint had been received since 2003 and in the Beijing No. 2 Municipal Detention Centre, none were received since its establishment in June 2004. In the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, two cases of torture were established by the courts since 2000, and in the Tibet Autonomous Region one such case had been confirmed. The Deputy Procurator-General informed the Special Rapporteur that only 33 law enforcement officials had been prosecuted for torture throughout the country during the first nine months of 2005. In addition, the Government in its comments of 25 January 2006 provided the Special Rapporteur with the following statistical information: Cases prosecuted for coercive interrogation 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 137 101 55 52 53 Individuals convicted 121 81 44 60 82 Cases prosecuted for “subjecting imprisoned persons to corporal punishment” 52 38 30 32 40 Individuals convicted 23 34 18 27 40 According to the 2005 SPP’s report to the NPC presented on 9 March 2005 (covering the year 2004), 1595 civil servants had been investigated for suspected criminal activity in cases involving “illegal detention, coercion of confessions, using violence to obtain evidence, abuse of detainees, sabotaging elections, and serious dereliction of duty resulting in serious loss of life or property.” The report goes on to note that this is a 13.3 percent increase over the previous year’s totals and that the SPP personally investigated 82 of the most serious cases. No information is provided, however, on the number of convictions. When compared with other national statistics, the figures for 2005 as well as the earlier statistics are certainly the tip of the iceberg in a country the size of China. http://www.spp.gov.cn/site2005/scripts/listSub.asp?cl=9201. 67 Cf., e.g., the case of Hu Shigen in Appendix 2. 68 See, e.g., the cases of Yang Zili, Xu Wei, He Depu, Yang Jianli, Jigme Tenzin, Lobsang Tsuitrim, Jigme Gyatsu, Tohti Tunyaz Mozat, Rebiya Kadeer and Nur Mohammat Yasin in Appendix 2. 69 In response to the Special Rapporteur’s characterisation of Re-Education through Labour as inhuman or degrading treatment, the host authorities wished to advance the following arguments: “First, reform and re-education are premised on helping detainees re-enter society. Since many detainees’ legal knowledge and cultural level is relatively low, detention facilities organize education in legal knowledge, morals, current affairs, and cultural knowledge in order to raise their legal perception and cultural level. Second, for those detainees who render meritorious