religious institutions and schools, although perhaps not as many as they would like. *Eh.e State placed no obstacles in the way of such institutions. 530. He informed the Committee that legislative provisions on the status of women, pregnancy and children had been amended considerably, and in that connection cited the law of 28 June 1992. Sight to life, treatment of prisoners and other detainees, and liberty and security of the person 531. With respect to these issues, the members of the Committee wished to know about the current status of planned criminal legislation designed to reduce significantly the number of crimes for which capital punishment could be ordered; how often and for what crimes the death penalty had been imposed and carried out since the consideration of the second periodic report; and whether any consideration had been given in Belarus to the abolition of the death penalty and accession to the Second Optional Protocol to the Covenant. They also requested further information on safeguards against torture and other impermissible methods of investigation; on the changes made to the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Corrective Labour Code relating to the implementation of article 10 of the Covenant; on the conditions of detention in colony settlements and corrective labour colonies, and on the compliance of their authorities with United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners; on the conditions of persons held in punishment or disciplinary isolation units or in solitary confinement; on the existence of penal sanctions consisting only of forced labour, and on the compatibility of any such legislation with article 8 of the Covenant; on measures taken tto restructure the work of the militia and other police institutions, with a view to better protecting the interests of the State and the rights of citizens; and on experience to date with the actual implementation of the Decrees adopted in July 1987 and January 1988 regulating conditions and procedures for providing psychiatric care. 532. The representative of the State party, replying to the guestions raised, said that under the proposed new criminal law of Belarus the number of crimes for which capital punishment could be ordered had been reduced from 38 to 4: deliberate murder with aggravating circumstances; rape with serious consequences; the kidnapping of a child; and acts of terrorism with aggravating circumstances. The abolition of the death penalty was an aspiration widely shared, but a majority still favoured its maintenance. In Parliament, a majority of deputies also favoured its retention for grave offences. Comparatively few persons had been sentenced to death since 1985, ranging from 17 to 21 cases per year. In 25 to 30 per cent of such cases, the sentence had been commuted to deprivation of liberty. There had been an increase recently in the crime rate, which might be connected with the current economic situation, but there had not been any proportional increase in the number of persons sentenced to capital punishment. In 1991, there had been 600 murders in Belarus, which was an increase of 200 over the previous year, but only 20 persons had been sentenced to death. Torture was strictly prohibited under the Code of Criminal Procedure and its actual or threatened use was a punishable offence. 533. With respect to conditions of detention, the representative described various types of regimes applied - general, hard, strict and special - -127-