A/HRC/22/33 C. Arbitrary arrests and detention 52. The legal grounds for the arrest and detention of the 83 members of the military and police force imprisoned at Kati between 22 March and 6 September 2012 and subsequently transferred to the Gendarmerie’s Camp No. 1 have yet to be explained. The detainees included Brigadier General Hamidou Sissoko, ex Chief of Staff to former President Touré, Colonel Abdoulaye Cissé, Lieutenant Colonel Yacouba Traoré and Commander Konaré. Some of the police officers held said that they were reported, arrested and detained by policemen, who were members of a rival group that supports the military junta in power and compared their arrest to a settling of scores. 53. However, the Mission established that the officers and non-commissioned officers of Camp No. 1 were held in generally acceptable conditions. Although, seven of them did not have the services of a lawyer; soldiers and police were in the same situation. The Mission was apprised that 17 Malian civilians and 30 foreigners, including Cameroonians, Nigerians, Chadians and citizens of Burkina Faso were held during the counter-coup in similar conditions. They were released between 7 and 8 May 2012. 54. The Mission also received a report that Mr. Diouara Mahamadou, a young man aged 28 years, the BBH10 militia leader, was allegedly kidnapped and held incommunicado at the State Security headquarters, without judicial guarantees, for several weeks before being transferred to the prison in Kati. 55. Checks and searches at road checkpoints manned by the military in Sévaré11 allegedly targeted “fair-skinned” people,12 and certain travellers who looked like members of armed groups were reportedly arrested, ill-treated and even detained, without legal grounds, simply because of their appearance. The military authorities informed the Mission that Sévaré has become a strategic and sensitive location because, since the arrest of a young French jihadi of Malian origin, on 6 November 2012, the military has been homing in on certain travellers. According to them, this is all being done within the law. On account of this ethnic monitoring, the Tuareg and Arab populations in the north have repeatedly told the Mission that they no longer dare take this route and are obliged most of the time to make detours through neighbouring countries to reach Bamako, which constitutes an infringement of their freedom of movement. D. Attacks on property 56. On 1 February 2012, on the sidelines of the event for the families of Malian soldiers, there were reprisals and violence against Arabs and Tuaregs in Bamako and Kati by angry young protesters. The Mission was apprised that the pharmacy and clinic of a Tuareg doctor originally from Timbuktu were vandalized in Kati. The house of the former Minister of Arts and Crafts and Tourism, Mr. Zakiyatou Oualett Halatine, who is of Tuareg origin, suffered the same fate. Without the intervention of the police, the Tuaregs would have been lynched. 10 11 12 GE.13-10067 BBH: Bouyan Ba Hawi “Better to be dead than ashamed” in the Songhai language. Region situated between the north and the south. Terminology used by the people interviewed. 15