A/49/677 English Page 20 legs, trunk and neck. Doctors also recorded permanent nerve damage to his right hand, apparently caused by tight handcuffs. 40/ 97. Aïssa Ihich, an 18-year-old French citizen of Moroccan immigrant parentage, died of an asthma attack in a suburban police station near Paris in May 1991. The police had refused to allow him the medication he needed to relieve his asthma. When he collapsed with the fatal asthma attack after 36 hours in custody, the ventilator he carried at all times was empty. Aïssa Ihich had been arrested and reportedly beaten with truncheons during disturbances at Mantes-la-Jolle, a suburb west of Paris. After his death, an autopsy recorded "minor injuries", caused by blows to the head and pelvis. In February 1992 the police doctor who had examined him and certified that he was medically fit to remain in detention was charged with involuntary homicide. No action has been taken against the police officers who reportedly assaulted Aïssa Ihich. They have yet to be identified. The judicial inquiry into the case has said it cannot establish which police unit arrested the youth. 41/ 98. In Italy, prisoners of Arab origin are subjected to discriminatory treatment. In May 1991, the director of an Italian prison replied to press queries about reports that prisoners were systematically ill-treated by saying that "40 per cent of the prisoners are Moroccan, Algerian and Tunisian, people with different cultural habits, often rebellious and violent". The press had been alerted to the situation at Sollicciano prison, near Florence, after inmates wrote to local and national newspapers alleging they were regularly threatened, beaten and injured by prison guards. About half of the 600 prisoners are immigrants from countries outside the European Community. On 18 December 1991, following an internal inquiry, the Prosecutor General declared there was no evidence of criminal responsibility and formally closed the case. Three days later, the national daily La Repubblica published a letter from women prisoners in Sollicciano, claiming that both they and male inmates were regularly beaten for no reason by prison guards. 42/ D. Anti-Semitism 99. The communication from the International Council of Jewish Women and the studies done by both the coordinating committee for Jewish organizations of the World Jewish Congress and its Institute of Jewish Affairs, 43/ and by Israeli university research centres, 44/ indicate that there has been a resurgence of anti-Semitism in the past few years, particularly in North Africa, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Western Europe, the United States of America, Canada, Japan, Australia, Latin America, the Middle East and Turkey. The International Council of Jewish Women states that: "Manifestations of modern-day anti-Semitism vary greatly from one region to another. The same is true for their degree of violence. Different types of anti-Semitic incidents are reported in many countries: anonymous telephone calls, radio and television programmes, anonymous letters, tracts, graffiti, newspaper articles, magazines, speeches, books, desecrations of cemeteries and synagogues, writing on the walls of Jewish schools, attacks against the property of Jews, criminal attacks against Jewish organizations (Buenos Aires, 18 July 1994; London, 26-27 July 1994). /...