State security forces were first reported to be actively siding with FPI supporters to suppress political dissent and attack RDR supporters, northern Muslims and foreigners on October 26, 2000. Several RDR supporters detained within police stations and gendarme bases reported having been initially detained by FPI supporters, who then handed them over to the state security forces. Raphael Lapke, fifty, the editor of a small newspaper and an RDR supporter from Gbagbo’s ethnic group, the Bete, was detained by a group of FPI supporters in the early morning of October 26, 2000 and later handed over to the paramilitary gendarmes. He was later held and beaten for several hours within the Gendarme Camp of Koumassi. He described his capture and the seemingly political motive for his detention:32 I used to work closely with Laurent Gbagbo. I was the one who created his newspaper, Notre Voix. Then we had a disagreement and in l995, I left. On October 26 at around 6:30 in the morning I took a stroll from my house to the junction to see what was happening. A few RDR people had started blocking the road but there were some FPI people around too. One of them recognized me, whistled and then the others surrounded me. They asked me what I was doing and I told them the RDR was going to demonstrate in the morning and I was going to join them. I said, “You’re not public security, you’re not there to say if we can demonstrate or not.” They accused me of having left my brother to go to a party of foreigners. I tried to remind them that we struggled with Gbagbo so that we could all be free but that now they were trying to prevent political expression. This angered them. They started beating us and then took us to a small group of gendarmes who were guarding a nearby factory. These gendarmes called their superiors and fifteen minutes later a jeep with ten gendarmes came and took us to the Gendarme Camp at Koumassi. As soon as we arrived the gendarmes threatened to kill me, and started saying the same things as the FPI militants: ‘we don’t understand how you can leave your brother and go with those foreigners, you should be happy a westerner is president.’ They ordered us to take off our clothes and lie down, and then started beating us on the back. All ten of them beat me with their belts. They said they were going to beat me to death. There’s a heavy iron buckle on those rope-belts they use. It gave me open wounds and cut open the skull of one of my employees who’d also been captured. Sexual Abuse Human Rights Watch documented several serious cases of sexual abuse in October, most within the Agban Gendarme Camp. There, several women were stripped naked, beaten, ordered to spread their legs, and threatened with sexual assault with tree branches. At least five male prisoners were ordered to get an erection in order to rape women detainees. When the men were unable to do so, they were struck repeatedly with a belt buckle on the head of the penis. In the Yopougon Gendarme Camp, at least one man was led around by a string tied to his penis. Nurses and doctors treating the wounded confirmed treating several men whose genitals had been badly wounded while in detention.33 A thirty-four-year-old RDR supporter who suffered multiple head injuries, burns and a broken right arm while in the Agban Gendarme Camp, described seeing sexual abuse against both men and women. He recounted:34 They also treated the women very badly. There were about nine or ten of them and they were completely naked. At one point they told the women to stand up and spread their legs and they took branches from an acacia tree they’d broken off and it looked like they put them inside of them. I couldn’t see if they actually did it but the women were crying. One of the gendarmes tried 32 Human Rights Watch interview, Abidjan, November 13,2000. Human Rights Watch interviews with hospital and clinic workers, Abidjan, November 5, 7, and 14, 2000. 34 Human Rights Watch interview, Abidjan, November 14, 2000. 33 Human Rights Watch 20 August 2001, Vol. 13, No. 6(A)