“They looked at his identity card and shot him dead” Six months of post-electoral violence in Côte d’Ivoire 21 Attacks on mosques and Imams After the election results were announced, mosques in Abidjan and outside the country's commercial capital were attacked and, in some cases, Muslims, including Imams (Muslim religious dignitaries), were shot dead. These attacks intensified at the end of February 2011, along with the general deterioration of the situation in Abidjan. Security forces loyal to Laurent Gbagbo, accompanied by Young Patriot militias, forcibly entered two mosques. These men justified these acts on the grounds that they were looking for arms. They brutalized and killed several people in these places of worship, including the Imams. On 25 February 2011, security forces and Young Patriots attacked the Lem mosque, in Yopougon, a neighbourhood of Abidjan. They vandalized and looted the mosque buildings, then set fire to the premises, including the Conseil national islamique (CNI, Islamic National Council) office in Yopougon. Then they set fire to a shed behind the mosque and broke down the door of the mosque to look for worshippers. A victim who survived that assault told Amnesty International: "They began to hit us with their rifle butts. Others punched and kicked us with their boots. One of them threw a Koran he had set alight at me. Then they told us to strip and continued to hit us. When they noticed that one of us, Cissé Moustapha, was wearing amulets, they really set about him, more than on me and the other person. They accused him of being an enemy. They forced us to lie down flat on the ground and then walked all over us. Then they told us to get on our knees, with our chins touching the ground and our buttocks in the air. Then they pushed the end of their guns into our anuses and shook them around. While this was happening, a UNOCI helicopter flew over the mosque. Each time it flew over, they told us to hide in order to avoid being seen. After the helicopter went away, they continued to hit us in the mosque courtyard. I was coughing so they pushed me to the ground but then they left with Moustapha Cissé and we have not seen him again since that Friday." On 15 March an Imam was shot dead in his mosque in Port Bouët (a district of Abidjan). An eyewitness told Amnesty international: "During the day, security forces were shooting from the other side, opposite the wall at the back of the mosque. Towards 7pm, four uniformed men wearing red berets came into the mosque courtyard and then left. Fifteen minutes later, before evening prayers, the Imam heard a noise. He went out to see where the noise was coming from. A teargas grenade had been thrown into the courtyard. As he began to walk back up the steps to the mosque, he was hit in the back by a bullet and fell to the ground. I couldn't see the person who shot him but I formed the impression that they were waiting to kill him." Four days later, on 19 March 2011, the security forces and militia members killed another Imam and his mother in a house adjoining a mosque in the neighbourhood of Williamsville. An eyewitness told Amnesty International: "On Saturday, about 8:30pm, three people including one wearing a red police armband, knocked at the entrance to the mosque courtyard. We opened the door to them. They said Index: AFR 31/002/2011 Amnesty International May 2011