reliving patterns of repression similar to those that occurred at that time. 47.Incidents like those described are numerous. The Attorney for Human Rights of Tegucigalpa told the Subcommittee that there were no official records and that the figures in circulation for persons detained thus came from information gathered by NGOs. By way of illustration, the Subcommittee has selected, from the many cases reported to it, some of those of which it had direct cognizance. 48.The Subcommittee received a written statement from a 26-year-old woman, pregnant at the time, who was arrested by the Cobra special squad at her home in San Pedro Sula on 29 July 2009, along with another woman and seven men. During transfer to police station No. 4 in the La Guardia district, in the DNIC precinct, the officers applied lighted cigarettes to the men’s hands and ears and to the soles of their feet. At the police station, the men were beaten while lying face down on the floor, and lighted cigarettes were again applied. One was given electric shocks to the stomach, ears and tongue. The following day, during the hearing before the judge, the public defender asked for one of the men to be examined by the forensic medical service because he was bleeding. None of the other detainees were asked if they had been ill-treated. 49.On 30 July 2009, several social associations belonging to the Frente de Resistencia contra el Golpe (Coup Resistance Front), and villagers from the departments of Comayagua and La Paz, demonstrated at Cuesta de la Virgen, in the department of Comayagua. Some 200 troops of the Preventive Police and the Engineers Battalion based in the town of Siguatepeque arrived and proceeded to break up the demonstration, physically assaulting many of the demonstrators. Around 100 people were arrested and taken to the Comayagua police station. Many of them were injured and had to be taken to the Santa Teresa Hospital. The Subcommittee obtained details of the injuries allegedly sustained by 30 of them. One man of 53 had fractures to the left arm; a 35-year-old man had suffered blunt force trauma to the skull; a 40-year-old woman was suffering from multiple trauma and a broken wrist. One group was put in a closed truck and the police threw in chemical products resembling teargas canisters, which prevented them from breathing. A 53-year-old man sustained fractures to the left hand, ribs and right shoulder. 50.One man was arrested on 3 August 2009 in San Ignacio, Tegucigalpa, by a policeman in plain clothes who forced him to get into a patrol car. He was taken to the Core 7 detention centre and beaten, insulted and burnt with lighted cigarettes while he was questioned on his participation in the marches in Ocotal. A medical examination carried out by the NGO he later approached found multiple first-degree burns on the thorax, the left forearm and wrist and the soles of both feet, as well as blunt force trauma to the head and right thigh. 51.On 12 August 2009, during a large march in the vicinity of Congress, in Tegucigalpa, 26 people, including 2 minors, were arrested by the Preventive Police, the Cobra squad and the army. Initially they were taken to the basement of the Congress building, in full view of deputies and staff. They were then transferred to the Cobra squad headquarters, which is not a recognized place of detention. After five hours there, at the urging of human rights organizations, 11 of those who had significant injuries (broken bones, blows to the head and other parts of the body) were transferred by the Honduran Red Cross to the teaching hospital. An hour later they were taken back to the Cobra headquarters and from there, at around 2 a.m., to Metropolitan Division No. 1, also known as Core 7. At no time were they apprised of the grounds for their arrest or read their rights, and they were given no opportunity to contact a lawyer or their families. The next day they were brought before the Public Prosecutor who charged 13 of them with sedition, unlawful demonstration, material damage, and theft. Eleven of them were transferred to the State Prison, where on arrival they were doused with buckets of cold water. The Subcommittee received a statement from one of the women arrested, a human rights defender, who was also beaten and had to be treated at the teaching hospital. 52.Another person who was arrested by soldiers and taken to the Cobra headquarters was a Colombian-Venezuelan national, a craft worker by trade, who happened to be near the place where the demonstration had been broken up on 12 August. He told members of the Subcommittee that, on arrival at the barracks, he was taken to a room and questioned about his participation in the demonstrations. To get him to sign a confession, he was beaten on various parts of the body, kicked in the knees and threatened with electric shocks and having a finger cut off. They stopped beating him only when he signed the paper. The Attorney for Human Rights, who launched an investigation into the case, told the Subcommittee that, despite the fact that he was under the jurisdiction of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the man had been taken from the place of detention to the hotel he was staying in and his room was searched, without authorization from the prosecutor. On top of that, proceedings were brought against him for taking part in an unlawful demonstration. 53.The Subcommittee also received testimony from a deputy from the Partido de Unificación Democrática (Democratic Unification Party), who had been beaten by police and soldiers during the 12 August march and had to have surgery for three broken bones in one arm. 54.The Subcommittee received testimony concerning the detention on 14 August 2009 of a group of more than 30 people, who were involved in a demonstration organized by the Frente de Resistencia contra el Golpe on El Kilómetro bridge, in Choloma, Cortés. Combined forces of the Preventive Police, the Cobra squad and the military are reported to have begun removing demonstrators at around 11 a.m. using tear gas and pepper gas, even though the demonstrators were not acting violently. Those arrested were reportedly beaten with cudgels and kicked, and threatened with disappearance or death. They were taken to the Choloma police station, where their personal effects (cell phones, keys, spectacles, etc.) were confiscated and they were not allowed to contact their families. Some were apparently beaten while in the police station. They were released some five hours later, after an application for habeas corpus had been made on their behalf and an enforcement judge had been appointed. The judge ordered their immediate release on the grounds that there was no legal basis for their detention (no arrest warrant from a competent authority, failure to read them their rights, no judicial proceedings against them). Some of the detainees had to be taken to hospital to have their injuries treated. At least one demonstrator was hit by a police bullet, in the left thigh, breaking the femur. At least two of those detained and beaten were minors (one aged 15, the other 16). 55.One woman arrested during the Choloma incidents was taken to a lonely spot in the country and raped by four policemen, who