An RDR supporter detained on the street near the national television station on December 4, 2000, described being threatened with death as gendarmes argued over how to kill him:102 I was on the street detained with about ten others. They were all horribly beaten and bleeding all over. There was one whose face was smashed, I couldn’t tell where his nose or mouth was, and there were two that weren’t moving at all. I think they were dead. Then a few gendarmes ordered me and other youth who were the only ones really conscious to pick up the wounded and the bodies and put them inside a truck. But I couldn’t because I was so weak. They beat me, pushed me to the ground and then one of the gendarmes walked up to me, put his boot in my face and told me to lick it. While I was doing this, another one readied his gun and said he was going to kill me, another disagreed and said he was going to cut my penis, and yet another said they should cut my throat and the last said they should cut my legs off so I couldn’t walk. They took my ID card and ripped it up. The thirty or so FPI youths were hanging around cheering the gendarmes on, and started saying things like, ‘hey you Burkinabé with your bastard president.’ Religious Persecution In December the targeting of Muslims by the state security forces, particularly by the police, became more organized. On December 5, 2000, seventy-four Muslims and their imam, gathered for afternoon prayer in the Avocatier Mosque, were rounded up in a police operation involving scores of police and several trucks. The Muslims were later detained for several days within the National Police Academy of Cocody. In a similar operation, some twenty-five Muslims and their imam were arrested by police as they inspected the damage caused to the Sofogia Mosque which had just been burned by a mob of FPI militants. Both groups were accused of hiding arms within their mosques. While in detention, groups of Muslims were beaten, doused with urine and dirty water, forced to break their fast, and refused the right to pray. Elderly Muslims and imams were forced to pull out their facial hair and watch as Korans and other sacred texts were destroyed by police. In detention Muslims were often insulted and forced to break religious rules. This was particularly reported in December, during the holy month of Ramadan. Also in Abobo, gendarmes opened fire into at least one mosque, later rounding up the imam and several of his family members. One of the mosque-goers from the Avocatier Mosque described what happened to the seventy-five Muslims captured during an afternoon operation by police from the 13th District:103 On Tuesday, December 5, the police came into our mosque. All seventy-five of us, including our imam, were taken away. Fasting month had just begun and that day we’d gathered a little bit ahead of the afternoon prayer to read from a special book of Koranic teachings the imam uses. He told us it was very precious to him because his father had brought it from Saudi Arabia in 1948. So, at exactly 3:58 p.m., we started to hear cars arriving, running, shooting and yelling and the next thing I knew a policeman pointed a gun at the imam and yelled, ‘don’t move.’ They threw teargas bombs in the place and as we ran outside we saw that the mosque had been surrounded by policemen; some with pistols, others long guns and a few with grenade launchers. There was a police truck with “13th District” written on it and three smaller cars. I know police uniforms; this was definitely a police operation. Once outside they ordered all of us to take off our robes and get on our knees. They beat us. The women were crying and screaming, ‘leave our husbands, let our sons go.’ This annoyed the police 102 103 Human Rights Watch interview, Abidjan, February 3, 2001. Human Rights Watch interview, Abidjan, February 11, 2001. Human Rights Watch 54 August 2001, Vol. 13, No. 6(A)