for the release of detainees. Security officers demanded money from the families of detainees to free their relatives or prevent others from being arrested. The overwhelming majority of detainees were Uzbeks. Many detainees were ill-treated, intimidated, and brutally beaten. Human rights organizations also reported that the security forces planted evidence, beat people with rifles, destroyed documents, stole possessions, and ill-treated detainees. "Many reported being held incommunicado in police or national security custody, beaten, or otherwise ill-treated and tortured to force them to confess to a crime or to incriminate a relative, a neighbour, an employer or a friend." Kyrgyz Security forces injured 39 people, two of whom died in hospital, in the village of Nariman. Authorities harassed and attacked lawyers representing clients, predominantly ethnic Uzbeks, with regard to the ethnic violence. Lawyers reported that local authorities prevented them from seeing their clients, let alone helping them. Officials insulted and threatened lawyers defending ethnic Uzbeks on repeated occasions. Ethnically-motivated attacks continued in the south of Kyrgyzstan after the large-scale violence diminished in intensity. The authorities did little to halt the attacks, either because they were unable to or unwilling to stop them. Human Rights Watch reported a dozen of people, mostly women, were attacked and brutally beaten in front of the Osh City Police Department, while a large number of armed policemen did nothing to stop the attacks. Local authorities did not investigate ill-treatment in custody. The chief military prosecutor told Human Rights Watch that the sweep operation in Nariman would not be investigated because he regarded the actions of the law enforcement agencies—including shooting and brutal beatings that resulted in two deaths—as "lawful and adequate." Aftermath Torture and arbitrary arrests in the aftermath of the violence In trials following the violence in southern Kyrgyzstan, the majority of defendants have been ethnic Uzbek. In early 2012, ethnic Uzbeks made up 77 per cent of those detained and charged for crimes related to the June 2010 violence. This has perpetuated the widely propagated theory in Kyrgyz political circles that the Uzbeks started the violence. Dozens of prominent Uzbek religious and community leaders were arrested by security forces following the riots, including journalist and human rights activist Azimzhan Askarov. Following a trial criticized by several international human rights organizations, Askarov was charged with creating mass disturbances, incitement of ethnic hatred, complicity in murder and was given a life sentence. Various human rights organizations