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V. ARBITRARY ARRESTS AND KILLINGS AS RESULT OF INDIVIDUAL DENUNCIATION-INSTILLING A CLIMATE OF FEAR

At the time of Human Rights Watch's visit to Côte d'Ivoire, Abidjan was affected by a general climate of fear, acutely felt by anyone who could be perceived as critical of the government and its effort against the "assailants." That includes human rights defenders, opposition politicians and those recently made homeless from the shantytowns of Abidjan. In that climate, it requires extraordinary courage for anyone who has witnessed or experienced a violation of their rights to speak out.

Since the current crisis occurred, the government has set up a hotline-a toll-free telephone service-apparently to encourage citizens to report people believed to be "assailants." While in itself an ostensibly legitimate law-enforcement measure, it has in practice been abused to restrict the human rights of law-abiding civilians. On October 13, the Ivorian security forces arrested an Amnesty International researcher, an Ivorian human rights defender, and the women they were interviewing in the Awoussa Bougou neighborhood of Abidjan. The researcher's papers were searched, and only after the direct intervention of the minister of justice at the request of the researcher's colleague were they all released one hour later. Someone observing the interviews had reported this completely lawful activity to the special hotline.

The following day, in the Adjamé district of Abidjan, a human rights defender told Human Rights Watch that they had interviewed witnesses of an incident in which two travelers in a shared taxi had aroused suspicion because they did not know where the taxi was heading. This was taken as an indication that they were foreigners, and therefore "assailants." The crowd attacked the two men, and by the time the police arrived-it seems someone had phoned to denounce them-they had been shot dead along the roadside near where they had boarded the taxi.19

19 Human Rights Watch interview with a human rights defender, Abidjan, October 14, 2002.

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