In November 2008 Burundi’s National Assembly passed a new criminal code which criminalizes torture, improving the opportunity for victims of abuse to secure redress. This positive development was somewhat watered down, however, by the failure to incorporate a provision that existed in the previous criminal code penalizing public officials who knowingly participated in illegal deprivation of liberty. However, senators responded to concern at the loss of this provision,[253] and on February 17, 2009, passed a revised version of the code that reincorporates it. Human Rights Watch is not aware, however, of any case in which the law has led to prosecutions.