the garden, clean the toilet and the dirty water canal… They said we were all Pakistani, but I am not. Anyone who said he was Burmese, they would hit…So I had no chance to express myself. The gendarmerie station was one hour by bus from Edirne, near the border. It was written “Jandarma” everywhere, but I don’t know the name of the place. We had to do this cleaning all day. The food was very little. Just one loaf of bread for 15 people. On the first day, we were given bread just once. On the second day, twice. We were also given small orange-colored fruit with dust on it. Forty people stayed at night in one room… The room was very small. It wasn’t possible to sleep there. There were no mattresses. We had to sit up. We drank water from the tap in the bathroom toilet. I told the gendarmes that I was very sick but I was beaten three times. The first time, when I requested to rest when I was working in the field, they hit me with a stick and kicked me in the backside several times. One tripped me and I lay on the ground and he hit me with a stick and kicked me with his boots. The second time, I was digging with a shovel and paused, and the police hit me. The third time I was hit when I put down the shovel to get a drink of water. The gendarme hit me with a black plastic baton. He also slapped me with his open hand. The police hit other people too. I would say of the 70 people working in the field, 50 were hit. Some of them cried.111 111 Human Rights Watch interview (name withheld, E-160), Edirne, June 13, 2008. 51 Human Rights Watch November 2008