CCPR/C/115/D/2214/2012 whether the secret detention to which the author was clearly subjected violated his right to recognition as a person before the law, within the meaning of article 16 of the Covenant. 3. In the case in question, the victim was placed in an unofficial place of detention (a requisitioned dwelling house, then a cell located in the administrative offices of the national intelligence agency, ANR). There, he was tortured and placed in a situation of total vulnerability: he understood that there was no recourse and that nobody could know of his whereabouts. For their part, the ANR officers placed him there specifically to ensure such isolation. They made sure not only that their victim had no rights at all, but, and especially, that he could no longer even claim to have any rights. The author of the communication might thus have remained there for years without anyone knowing and without ever being able to avail himself of the guarantees which the legal system normally recognizes to any human being. Fortunately for him, he was able to escape from the hospital to which he had been transferred and thus reclaim his dignity. 4. The victim’s family did not remain idle: on 17 December 2008, six days after the arrest, the author’s brother filed a complaint with the Attorney General against ANR for abduction and arbitrary detention. But, on 23 December 2008, the author’s brother was forced to withdraw his complaint following acts of intimidation against him. However, he again filed a complaint on 23 January 2009, that is, after the victim had escaped. That complaint too remained unaddressed. Thus, in this case, the authorities refused to acknowledge the detention of the victim or to provide information on his fate; they also concealed his place of detention, which was an unofficial place of detention. Such non-recognition of the arrest and detention, coupled with the subjective situation of the prisoner, who was aware that he was a “non-person” plunged into an organized legal vacuum, constitutes a violation of article 16 of the Covenant. 5. It should be noted that the practices of ANR in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are well known and have been documented many times by non-governmental organizations and the international human rights bodies. Specifically, the following conclusions were drawn in a report by the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, written a year and a half before the event in question: Serious violations of the rights of persons have occurred on the premises and in the cells of the intelligence services [...] and in the cells of military camps [...]. The services concerned are very frequently acting outside their mandate. They most often deny the existence of these places of detention, which are not subject to any control and can also be the starting point for enforced disappearances. d 6. Basing its assessment on recent developments that have taken place in its jurisprudence, the Committee should have recognized a violation of article 16 in the case of Mr. Lumbala Tshidika. __________________ d 14/17 United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo/Human Rights Division and Child Protection Section, Arrestations et détentions dans les prisons et cachots de la RDC. Partie I. La légalité des arrestations et des détentions (Arrests and detentions in the prisons and cells of DRC. Part I. The legality of arrests and detentions), March 2006. For a recent case, see, on the website of Human Rights Watch, article of 27 January 2015 on the arrest and the secret detention of Mr. Ngoyi: five days after Mr. Ngoyi’s arrest, a senior official of ANR admitted that Mr. Ngoyi was being detained by its services, but “the authorities have not revealed where he is being detained or allowed him access to his family or a lawyer ”. Human Rights Watch pointed out that “Enforced disappearances are defined [...] as the arrest or detention of a person by government officials or their agents followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty, or to reveal the person’s fate or whereabouts.” GE.15-22873