A/HRC/36/54 procedures prescribed by law. Moreover, many victims were not informed of the reasons for their arrest. 42. The Commission is also concerned about draft amendments to the Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure which, in some cases, would enable criminal investigation officers to conduct searches without a warrant, including at night. 43. In many cases documented by the Commission, the persons arrested were taken to the National Intelligence Service or police cells and subjected to torture or ill-treatment before being released or transferred to prisons. Several testimonies referred to secret places of detention located, for example, within the headquarters of the National Intelligence Service in Bujumbura or in private houses or containers in different provinces, where detainees were deprived of any contact with the outside world. 44. Most of the detainees did not enjoy the safeguards prescribed by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and by Burundian law, such as access to a lawyer and to medical care, the possibility of petitioning a court to rule on the legality of their detention, and the right to receive visits. Many victims were also detained in conditions that constituted cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and for periods extending beyond the maximum allowable time of police custody, namely seven days renewable once only, which is already excessive.20 The practice in regard to release is often random; publicity about an arrest, or acquaintance with a person within the State apparatus, can facilitate release. In many cases, exorbitant amounts of money have been demanded by members of the National Intelligence Service, the police, the judiciary or the Imbonerakure for the release of detainees or their transfer to prisons. 4. Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment 45. The Commission has documented a persistent practice of torture and ill-treatment since April 2015. Numerous witnesses identified the headquarters of the National Intelligence Service, situated near Bujumbura Cathedral, as a place where such acts occurred, while others referred to a police detention centre known as “Chez Ndadaye”, which was used mainly in 2015 by the Anti-Riot Brigade, among others. Several other detention centres run by the police and the National Intelligence Service in Bujumbura and other provinces, as well as some unofficial places of detention, were also mentioned. 46. The victims interviewed by the Commission mentioned recurrent methods of torture, including beatings with clubs, rifle butts, bayonets, iron bars, metal chains or electric cables, as a result of which some victims’ bones were broken and other victims lost consciousness; long needles thrust into victims’ bodies or unidentified substances injected into them; nails ripped out. Some victims were placed beside human remains or forced to eat faeces. Rapes were also committed and acts of torture inflicted on the genital organs of victims. Detainees were forced to witness executions, convinced that they would be the next victims. Acts of torture and ill-treatment were often accompanied by insults, including of an ethnic nature, and threats to kill the victims with firearms or grenades. In many cases these acts caused severe and enduring physical and psychological trauma. 47. Victims described conditions of detention that may constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, such as prison overcrowding, denial of adequate food and medical care, denial of access to toilet facilities, and failure to separate adults from minors as was the case at the National Intelligence Service in Bujumbura. 5. Sexual violence 48. Notwithstanding their fears of stigmatization, the Commission was able to interview more than 45 victims of sexual violence whose ages ranged from 8 to 71 at the time when the acts were committed. The real number of victims, mostly women but also a few men and children, is probably much higher. The most recent of these acts of sexual violence took place in 2017. 20 10 The international norm is 48 hours. GE.17-13865