E/CN.4/2001/66/Add.2 page 25 already been sentenced. The Special Rapporteur notes that a number of detainees refused to speak for fear of reprisals while a few made allegations of beatings during interrogation in order to extract confessions. 68. On the same day, the Special Rapporteur visited the women’s lock-up of the main police station, the Department of Investigation, of Belo Horizonte. It is believed that this is the only police lock-up for women in the city. Eight clean cells held 104 women at that time. Most of them had already been sentenced and expressed the hope to be transferred soon to a penitentiary. A few complained of torture, including sexual violence, to which they had allegedly been subjected at the time of arrest or during initial interrogation (see annex), and most acknowledged being well-treated by police officials, including male police officers who were sometimes in charge of the lock-up. Most of the complaints regarded the slow pace of the judicial process. 2. A prison 69. On 3 September, the Special Rapporteur visited Nelson Hungria prison which appeared to the Special Rapporteur to be a relatively modern prison composed of 12 blocks in which prisoners were held in 6-square-metre individual cells. Each cell contained a shower and a toilet. Cells were clean and contained a mattress and personal items, such as televisions and water heaters. The official capacity is 721 prisoners, but only 701 prisoners were said currently to be held. All but five detainees, who were said to have refused, were working during the day. This was the only establishment in which detainees did not complain about the quality of the food. The officer-in-charge of the prison at that time, i.e. the Director of Re-education and Resocialization, explained to the Special Rapporteur that a hospital wing had been built but had never been opened for lack of medical staff. A medical doctor and a volunteer nurse were only available to perform the initial check-up and to recommend transfer to hospitals, if necessary. 70. The Director of Re-education and Resocialization explained to the Special Rapporteur that all complaints of ill-treatment from detainees are the object of an internal inquiry assigned by the Director-General of the prison to one of his subdirectors, i.e. of re-education and resocialization, of security or of association and security. He further explained that when a medical report was needed, the alleged victim had first to be taken to a police station where a form had to be filled out before any detainee could be taken to the Forensic Medical Institute. He indicated that for the last five and a half years, there had been 47 guards under internal investigation. Only 10 had been found guilty and dismissed by the Superintendent of the Penitentiary Organization. No information was available regarding the opening of criminal proceedings against these agents. 71. A thirteenth block was used as a Criminological Observation Centre (COC), where recent prisoners were said to be taken first for observation for up to 30 days during which they were reported to undergo several psychological, medical and sociological tests. It was also explained to the Special Rapporteur that during this period the Director-General of the prison meets each prisoner individually to explain the internal disciplinary rules. Prisoners detained at the time of the visit in the COC indicated that they had not yet been examined by anybody, while some said they had already spent more than a fortnight in the COC. They were expecting to be transferred to a normal block as soon as cells became free. Some prisoners held in the COC complained about having been seriously beaten in the corridor of the block upon first arrival at night. They