A/HRC/13/39/Add.5 allegation in a non-bureaucratic manner, either verbally or in writing, to the attention of a State official suffices.63 The latter can be any ordinary staff member of a penitentiary facility, but also doctors, social workers, prison chaplains, prosecutors, or, if existent, members of a monitoring body. It remains within the discretion of detainees where and to whom they wish to complain. 111. Once an allegation has been made it must be promptly followed up by an impartial examination by a competent body which is independent from the alleged perpetrator, equipped with full investigative powers in order to secure evidence and establish the facts, and ultimately be in the position to forward the matter to those authorities that can initiate criminal proceedings. As a minimum, the complainant shall be heard by the authority conducting the examination and meet with a doctor for a forensic examination.64 112. For the right to complain to be meaningful, complainants must be able to rely on the fact that their complaints will not result in any reprisals. States are therefore obliged to take effective measures to protect those who dare to speak out against any form of intimidation and other adverse consequences.65 Measures in this regard can be the transfer of the complainant or the implicated personnel to a different detention facility or the suspension from duty of the latter for as long as the results of the examination are pending. The protection from reprisals is so crucial that it actually has to be considered as a part of the right to complain. What is at stake is not only the actual case, but the general credibility and therefore functioning of the complaints mechanism, since reprisals always also exert a deterrent effect on others who may consider raising allegations in the future. States therefore have to inquire into all reported cases of intimidation and set up a program that protects complainants, witnesses and those who might be further endangered.66 113. In retrospect, I can hardly think of any other safeguard where the legally required protection and the actual reality differ in such a glaring and devastating way. One of the most vivid, indicative and telling situations I encountered was during my mission to Nigeria. In one of the Criminal Investigation Departments in Lagos, I found more than 70 detainees crammed into one cell which was too small, badly lit, and filthy. The detainees had been held in the cell for up to more than two years, and none of them had left the cell since their arrival. They had not seen a lawyer or been visited by family members, who in many cases were not even aware of their whereabouts. In their interviews, the detainees reported how they were ill-treated by the police during arrest and interrogation at the Criminal Investigation Department. Many of them had shot wounds which were deliberately inflicted as a means to demobilize them after arrest or to extort a confession. All of them carried clearly visible traces of beatings and other forms of ill-treatment on their skin. None of them had received any medical treatment. This situation presented itself just a few meters behind a Human Rights Desk, which was set up with the purpose of receiving complaints by detainees. At the desk were a few officers on duty, and their workplace was adorned with a complaints box and posters on the rights of detainees. They had never received any complaint by a detainee. 63 64 65 66 CAT Committee, Parot v. Spain, Comm. No 6/1990, para. 10.4; Blanco Abad v. Spain, Comm. No. 59/1996, para. 8.6; Comm. No. 59/1996; Imed Abdelli v. Tunisia, Decision of the Committee against Torture of 20 November 2003, Comm. No. 188/2001, para. 10.6; Bouabdallah Ltaief v. Tunisia, Decision of the Committee against Torture of 20 November 2003 , Comm. No. 189/2001, para. 10.6; Jovica Dimitrov v. Serbia and Montenegro, Decision of the Committee against Torture of 23 May 2005, Comm. No. 171/2000, para. 7.2; Ingelse, 367. Ingelse, 367 and CAT/C/SR.203, para. 38. A/56/44/, para. 53(e). CAT/C/LKA/CO/2, para. 15. 31