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intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations. At the time of writing, information and
comments had been received by the Special Rapporteur from the Governments of Argentina,
Bahrain, Belarus, Colombia and Tunisia, as well as the non-governmental organizations
Amnesty International and the Omega Foundation. The Special Rapporteur believes that further
information would be needed to allow his successor to carry out this study effectively.
II. ACTIVITIES OF THE SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR
5.
The Commission, in its resolution 2001/62 (para. 38) requested the Special Rapporteur
to present an interim report to the fifty-sixth session of the General Assembly at its
fifty-sixth session on overall trends and developments with regard to his mandate and the
Assembly, in its resolution 55/89 (para. 30), decided to consider it. Accordingly, he submitted
his interim report (A/56/156) to the General Assembly under the agenda item entitled
“Human rights questions”. In that report, the Special Rapporteur addressed the following
issues: intimidation as a form of torture; enforced or involuntary disappearance as a form of
torture; torture and discrimination against sexual minorities; torture and impunity; and
prevention and transparency. He also included a further revised version of the recommendations
that had been included in his previous reports to the Commission on Human Rights. For ease
of reference, these recommendations are annexed to the present report (annex I).
6.
Regarding country visits, the Special Rapporteur regrets that the Government of China
did not confirm the possibility of a visit in September 2001 as discussed with a delegation from
the Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China in June 2000. He would like to
reiterate that he would have been happy to accept the February 1999 invitation by the
Government of China to conduct a friendly visit to China, on the basis of modalities that would
have ensured that the visit would have provided information capable of permitting him to make
recommendations responding to the factual, institutional and legal obstacles to guaranteeing full
respect for the prohibition of torture and other forms of ill-treatment falling within his mandate.
Regarding the joint request with the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes
and consequences, to visit the Russian Federation with respect to the Republic of Chechnya
(2000), the Special Rapporteur regrets that the Government did not agree to a joint mission this
year despite the fact that he had been informed by a delegation from the Permanent Mission of
the Russian Federation that such a visit could be envisaged at a later stage, once the security
situation permitted. Regarding his request to visit Israel with respect to the occupied Palestinian
territories, the Special Rapporteur reiterated his request to visit the country on the basis of the
standard terms of reference for fact-finding missions. In particular, he inquired whether the
non-cooperation of the Government of Israel on the basis of Commission resolution S-5/1
of 19 October 2000 would have precluded his access to the country and to all places of detention
and interrogation chosen prior to and during the mission and confidential and unsupervised
interviews with detained persons chosen by himself. At the time of writing of the present report,
no reply had been received. Finally, the Special Rapporteur notes that the Permanent
Representative of the Kingdom of Nepal to the United Nations Office at Geneva gave in
April 2001 an initial positive reaction to the February 2001 Special Rapporteur’s request to visit
his country.