E/CN.4/2001/66 page 138 695. By letter dated 31 May 2000, the Government responded that there was no demonstration on 26 October 1999, but a celebration of the Boat Racing Festival. The Lao authorities arrested on that day a group of about 10 people, mostly unemployed, who were paid from abroad to distribute leaflets against the Government and raise the flag of the former Lao regime. These acts breached the Lao Penal Code by undermining national security. These persons are awaiting trial. The timely arrest was fully in line with the government policy to transform the Lao PDR into a State where the rule of law prevailed. 696. On 9 June 2000, the Special Rapporteur sent an urgent appeal on behalf of a number of persons who were said to have been arrested since March 2000 following six bomb attacks, all but one in Vientiane. They were all said to be detained incommunicado. Lebanon Urgent appeals 697. On 17 November 2000, the Special Rapporteur sent a joint urgent appeal with the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions and the Special Rapporteur on the rights of migrants on behalf of the following Sudanese asylum seekers, Trabun Ibrahim Laku, Gilbert Kwagy, Adam Abu Bakr Adam and Salah Muhammad ‘Abdallah, who were reportedly held incommunicado at Furn al-Shibak General Security detention centre in Beirut, as well as about 200 Sudanese and Iraqi asylum seekers/migrants held in the same and other detention centres around the country on charges of entering the country illegally. They were allegedly tortured in order to force them to abandon their asylum applications and leave the country. Gilbert Kwagy is believed to have sustained a broken arm. ‘Awadalla Jum’a Jarkum, a Sudanese asylum-seeker, was reportedly detained by the Lebanese security forces on 9 October 2000 and to have initially been detained at the Furn al-Shibak General Security detention centre in Beirut, before having been transferred to Rumieh prison in Beirut. He reportedly died in Rumieh prison on 3 November 2000. No autopsy is said to have been carried out. Trabun Ibrahim Laku was reportedly arrested on 19 April 2000, although he lodged an asylum application with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. He was reportedly sentenced to three months’ imprisonment by a court for illegally entering Lebanon. He was reportedly transferred from ‘Alya Prison to Furn al-Shibak General Security detention centre. When he failed to produce his passport he was reportedly beaten with batons. As a result, he is said to be partially paralysed, to be suffering from severe back pain, with a fracture to the lumbar region of the spine, and is reportedly incontinent. On 14 October 2000, after a further two months of incommunicado detention, he was reportedly released and admitted to Al-Karantina hospital. No investigation into his torture allegations is said to have been carried out. Libyan Arab Jamahiriya 698. By letter dated 8 November 2000, the Special Rapporteur reminded the Government of a number of cases transmitted in 1998 regarding which no reply had been received.