Nevertheless, given an incriminatory past and the conservatory views existing in the society, sexual minorities are still vulnerable to prejudices and discriminatory attitudes.

There are many other less violent ways to coerce or to lead the child to a confession or a self-incriminatory testimony.

Upon the institution of criminal proceedings against a suspect, any self-incriminatory material (such as a purported confession made voluntarily by the accused to a senior police officer) is subjected to scrutiny prior to its admission as evidence.

They were held without charge or trial for several months, at the end of which they were charged under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) of 20 July 1979, and obliged to sign self-incriminatory statements, sometimes under torture.

Their trials are allegedly progressing very slowly. Most of the charges were reportedly fabricated. The self-incriminatory statements were written in Sinhalese, a language most of them do not understand.

Additional detention facilities had been opened by the terrorism investigation unit in order to ease overcrowding, and certain legal methods of criminal investigation had been selected and formulated with a view to eliciting self-incriminatory material from suspects.

With regard to the State party's failure to properly investigate, the author recalls the testimony of various prisoners on this point and states that the prosecution department could have collected incriminatory statements if it had conducted a genuine inquiry by hearing testimony from Mr. Lantsov's fellow prisoners.

The Supreme Court has established in its case law not only that the cassation process includes an assessment of the legality or illegality of the evidence submitted, but also that the review includes substantive examination of the evidence to determine whether it is incriminatory or exculpatory, or simply too flimsy to set aside the presumption of innocence.

The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued an opinion relating to 13 ethnic Tamils who had allegedly been arrested and kept in judicial custody under the provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) without charges or trial for several months, before being charged under the PTA and obliged to sign self-incriminatory statements sometimes under torture, in a manner contrary to article 14 of ICCPR.

In addition to providing specific replies to the recommendations made by the Committee in its communication dated 28 March 2001, the Government provided information on additional activities undertaken: video recording of confessions made by suspects to assistant superintendents of police, recorded under the provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism Act and the Emergency Regulations; creation of additional detention facilities at the TID with a view to easing the overcrowding of the existing detention facilities on the sixth floor of the new secretariat building; and identification and formulation of legal methods of criminal investigation aimed at eliciting self-incriminatory material.