A/HRC/13/39/Add.5 of human rights experts, doctors (above all forensic experts), interpreters, security officers and other UN staff who must enjoy the same rights, diplomatic privileges and immunities. In order to document cases of torture and ill-treatment in accordance with the respective provisions of the Istanbul Protocol and professional rules of experts in the field of human rights and forensic science, we also use electronic devices, photo, audio and video equipment inside detention facilities. These terms of reference are common sense requirements of any effective and objective fact-finding efforts. 14. I like to compare an invitation by States to carry out a mission to their country with the invitation of an external auditor by a business enterprise. In both situations, the respective Governments or Boards of Governors are supposed to have a genuine interest in an objective external evaluation of the situation in their countries or companies aimed at identifying needs for reform and methods of improvement. While companies pay a substantial amount of money for a thorough external audit, States get the results and recommendations of my missions free of charge. Nevertheless, I was often confronted with substantial efforts of Governments to obstruct my fact-finding activities by subjecting me to extensive surveillance and bureaucratic hurdles, denying me access to certain detention facilities, preventing me from speaking in private with detainees, victims and witnesses, extensively preparing detention facilities and instructing detainees about the way they should or should not interact with me, etc. 15. In Mongolia for example, I was consistently denied access to prisoners on death row whose treatment, according to reliable sources (handcuffed and shackled in dark cells without adequate food and with the right to be visited only by one family member before execution), definitely amounted to torture. Even the President of the Republic assured me that all information surrounding capital punishment, including the number of death sentences and the treatment of prisoners on death row, constituted strict State secrets and that he would commit a criminal offence by making such information available to me.2 In China, I was regularly followed and monitored by intelligence officers, our telephones were tapped, witnesses from Shanghai who were travelling to meet me in Beijing were physically prevented from doing so, witnesses in Beijing were forced to leave the city in order to prevent them from meeting me, a well-known human rights lawyer was physically attacked on his way to a meeting with me, the authorities of Tibet attempted to hide a new maximum security prison and even after its discovery only allowed a few individual interviews, etc.3 In Jordan, I was denied the right to conduct confidential interviews with detainees at the General Intelligence Directorate, and at the headquarters of the Criminal Investigation Police of Amman, victims of torture were removed from their cells and driven around in police cars during my inspection. Even after I had conducted an interview with a victim with serious torture injuries, which were corroborated through an examination by the forensic expert accompanying me, the victim was later removed and his presence in the detention facilities denied.4 I had similar experiences in Sri Lanka, where a considerable number of detainees at the Terrorist Investigation Department were removed and hidden from me during my visits to these facilities.5 Even in Nigeria, where the cooperation by the Federal Government was excellent, I was repeatedly denied access to the detention facilities of the State Security Services and had major problems obtaining access to the infamous “torture room” at the headquarters of the Criminal Investigation Police in Lagos.6 In Equatorial Guinea, I was denied access to any military facilities and was seriously 2 3 4 5 6 E/CN.4/2006/6/Add.4. E/CN.4/2006/6/Add.6. A/HRC/4/33/Add.3. A/HRC/7/3/Add.6. A/HRC/7/3/Add.4. 7