E/CN.4/2005/62/Add.2 page 45 leadership will not tolerate any such acts. The Ministry has also elaborated a concept paper on the establishment of independent commissions for the investigation of torture allegations. All these activities were reported by the media. 201. Recommendation (b) stated: The Government should amend its domestic penal law to include the crime of torture the definition of which should be fully consistent with article 1 of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and supported by an adequate penalty. 202. According to the information received from non-governmental sources, although the Government of Uzbekistan has amended the definition of torture in article 235 of the Criminal Code, this definition falls short of the authoritative definition of torture contained in the article 1 of the Convention. The amended article states that torture is defined as “illegal physical or mental coercion”, thus leaving open the possibility of legal forms of coercion. Article 1 of the Convention contains no such limitation, nor did the original version of article 235. Article 235 as amended further provides an unduly narrow list of law enforcement authorities prohibited from the use of torture, while the Convention definition prohibits the use of torture by any “public official or other person acting in an official capacity.” For example, the narrow language of amended article 235 does not cover representatives of mahalla committees, which are not officially considered law enforcement agencies but play an important role in local law enforcement. Also, amended article 235 fails to incorporate the notion of command responsibility (respondant superior), captured in the Convention’s wording “inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.” Finally, while article 1 of the Convention defines torture as coercion of someone “for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed, intimidating him or a third person…”, article 235 as amended does not fully limit the use of third persons in torture cases. 203. The Government reported that torture has been included as a crime in article 235 of the Criminal Code of Uzbekistan, which includes a definition based on in article 1 of the Convention. The modifications to the original text were necessary to reflect the legal language of Uzbekistan. The responsibility of third persons is regulated by chapter 7 of the Criminal Code, which attributes responsibility for participation in the commission of a crime. Since the Criminal Procedure Code does not use the term “legal violence”, there is no way to refer to it to justify torture. The groups of professionals enumerated in the newly introduced definition cover the whole range of persons possibly involved at the arrest, investigation and trial stages. Since mahalla representatives are part of civil society and not of law enforcement, they cannot participate in the investigation of criminal cases and they cannot be “persons acting in an official capacity”. If they commit any crimes, this would be qualified as an abuse of position and authority, or negligence. In order to inform the Ministry of the Interior staff about the new article, Order No. 334 was issued on 18 December 2003, which contains explanations and puts into place a special reporting and investigation system in cases of alleged torture. 204. Recommendation (c) stated: The Government should also amend its domestic penal law to include the right to habeas corpus, thus providing anyone who is deprived of his or her liberty by arrest or detention the right to take proceedings before an independent judicial body which may decide promptly on the lawfulness of the deprivation of liberty and order the release of the person if the deprivation of liberty is not lawful.