E/CN.4/2004/56/Add.2 page 9 blood/urine tests if the detainee requests them. The Protocol also includes services to be provided to the families of persons in incommunicado detention. It established a hotline which functions 24 hours a day to provide information to close relatives of the detainee. The information provided includes the reason for and place of arrest, the health condition of the detainee and a list of personal articles that can be given to the detainee. The family are also informed when incommunicado detention is completed and the person has been brought before the judicial authorities. II. SCOPE AND CONTEXT: ACTORS AND FACTORS A. Terrorism and its effects 23. As mentioned in the introduction to this report, during the mission the Special Rapporteur focused his inquiry on the treatment of individuals held in police detention, and in particular on the treatment and regime applicable to suspected members or collaborators of terrorist groups. 24. In this respect, the Special Rapporteur wishes to underline that he is fully aware of the acts of violence and terrorism confronting Spain. The crimes committed by Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) flout the principles of international and national human rights law and the dictates of public conscience. ETA has been criminally involved in shootings, bombings and campaigns of intimidation, which has had an enormous impact on the daily lives of people. Many in Spain live in constant fear: politicians, judges, lawyers, members of law enforcement forces, academics and journalists have received death threats against themselves and their families. According to the information received, since 1984 ETA has killed 831 individuals, injured 2,392 and abducted 77. 25. The Ministry of the Interior emphasized that terrorism was a grave security threat. The Government told the Special Rapporteur that it was fighting terrorism on three main fronts: the rule of law, international cooperation, and the stability pact for liberty and against terrorism (Acuerdo por las libertades y contra el terrorismo), an agreement concluded on 8 December 2000 between the People’s Party and the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party. 26. The Special Rapporteur recognizes that Spain has a right, and indeed an obligation, to protect its citizens and the security of the State against such acts and threats thereof. However, he wishes to reiterate, as he has done most recently in his report to the General Assembly (A/57/173), that the legal and moral basis for the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment is absolute and imperative and must under no circumstances yield or be subordinate to other interests, policies or practices, including the legitimate need to prevent terrorist acts and bring those responsible for having financed, planned, supported or committed these acts, to justice. It follows that legislation must provide sufficient legal safeguards to prevent, prohibit and combat torture and other forms of ill-treatment and ensure that impunity will not prevail in cases of torture under any circumstances, and that such normative safeguards must be duly implemented and applied. 27. Before and during his visit to the country, the Special Rapporteur received a great deal of information from non-governmental sources, including personal testimonies from former detainees, to the effect that torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment continues to occur in Spain. The majority of the information received, in line with the focus of the visit, was