E/CN.4/1998/38/Add.2 page 5 authority, torture, arbitrary detentions, etc. against the inhabitants of peasant and indigenous communities in areas close to where the EPR has been operating. 15. Generally speaking, victims are arrested without a warrant during round-ups, at road checkpoints or in their homes; then they are taken in unmarked military vehicles or vans, blindfolded and tied up, to places they cannot identify, where they are tortured. It is frequently members of the State Judicial Police and the army working together who carry out the arrests. The interrogations to which victims are subjected include questions on their alleged participation in ambushes against the army, possession of weapons, participation in EPR meetings, etc. The majority of those arrested are subsequently released under threat of death to them and their families if they report what has happened. Those who are held in detention longer are first obliged to sign blank statements which they are unable to read, without the assistance of an interpreter or a lawyer. 1 16. One example is the incidents which took place around 3 April 1997 in the indigenous communities of San Miguel Ahuelicán and Alpuyecancingo, Municipality of Ahuacuotzingo, Guerrero. On that date a large group of men of the 35th military zone came in military vehicles to the Nahuatl community of San Miguel Ahuelicán looking for people who had participated in an attack on the army a few days earlier. The soldiers forced their way into houses demanding that weapons should be given up and asking for the attackers. In the course of the house searches, many belongings were destroyed or stolen. Although no warrant issued by a competent authority was shown, several people were arrested and taken to the municipal police station, including Emilio Ojéndiz Morales, José Cervantes Márquez, Juan Paulino Cervantes, José Abelino Cervantes, aged 17, José Abelino Pérez, Pascual Rodriguez Cervantes and the representative of the municipality (civil authority), Juan Salvador Abelino. Over the next few hours they were subjected to torture, including beatings and attempted suffocation with plastic bags while they had their hands tied behind their backs. They received death threats to their families, and were placed bound hand and foot under vehicles with the engines running to make them think they were about to be run over. Juan Salvador Abelino was forced to drink large quantities of water and was then hit in the stomach and jumped on. Finally he was accused of being in possession of poppy seed and of a firearm (according to the victim an old rifle inherited from his father and not used only by the army); he was brought before the Public Prosecutor and then taken to the Chilpancingo Social Rehabilitation Centre (CERESO). The Special Rapporteur was able to talk to him and to José Cervantes Márquez, who had undergone similar treatment, when he visited Chilpancingo prison. They said that they had signed a statement before the Public Prosecutor without knowing what it said since they could not read. 17. On 6 April 1997 soldiers came to the community of Alpoyecatzingo and ordered the community representative to gather all the inhabitants and inform them of the attack which had been made on the army. Several houses were searched and some money and belongings were stolen. One person, Abelino Tapia Morales, aged 70, was arrested. During the two days he remained in the hands