E/CN.4/1990/17 page 72 informal way, investigations on alleged violations of human rights; the staff has direct access to police-stations and military barracks. If an allegation has been found to be justified the competent authorities are invited to take the necessary steps to start a criminal procedure. 242. According to information from non-governmental sources received by the Special Rapporteur, legal provisions, in particular those regarding arrest and detention, are violated on a wide scale. It was said that very often arrests were made without a legal warrant, that the arrested person was not allowed to make use of his constitutional right to have his relatives informed, that the 24-hour rule was not respected as arrested persons were often held incommunicado for up to seven days or more, and that during this period of incommunicado detention they were regularly tortured (the most common methods being: beating, the application of electric shocks, hooding - leading to near asphyxiation - and psychological threats). During his visit the Special Rapporteur was provided by a non-governmental organization with a file containing 572 cases of alleged torture, committed between 1980 and 19 September 1989). Furthermore, it was stated that the judiciary were not sufficiently active in taking up habeas corpus procedures, that allegations about torture were not investigated in a serious way and that steps were hardly ever taken to prosecute members of the police or the armed forces on the charge of violation of article 333 of the Penal Code. 3. Evaluation and recommendations 243. The political climate in Honduras seems, to a high degree, to be determined by strongly-held ideological positions. The spread of communism is seen as the most important threat by the authorities, in particular by the armed forces which have a very important place in the State structure. The oldest and most important non-governmental human rights organization (CODEH) is regularly accused of making unfounded allegations for political reasons. A member of the judiciary told the Special Rapporteur that nowadays practically every suspect claims that he has been tortured, but that these allegations very rarely turn out to be well-founded. 244. After a visit of merely three days, the Special Rapporteur is not in a position to determine whether the allegations about the widespread practice of torture are well-founded or whether the authorities are right when they maintain that the majority of these allegations are made for political reasons. 245. The mere fact, however, that .according to the civil and military authorities more than 1,200 members of the police and the military have been punished or disciplined for abuse of authority is in itself an indication that the fundamental human rights which are guaranteed by the Constitution and by international instruments are not fully respected. During a briefing by the head of the Department of Forensic Medicine, the Special Rapporteur was informed that during the month of May 1989 three out of 15 allegations of torture had proved to be well-founded. And a member of the Supreme Court stated that although all arrests must be carried out on the basis of warrants, in reality there were many cases in which arrests were made without such a warrant. 246. The human rights situation, therefore, certainly gives rise to concern. As the great majority of the allegations received by the Special Rapporteur refer to torture practised during incommunicado detention beyond the 24-hour