"Widespread human rights violations have taken place throughout the country since March 1988 as security forces have moved to suppress unprecedented popular unrest that culminated in August in a huge uprising demanding an end to authoritarian military rule and the establishment of multi-party democracy. Several thousand mostly non-violent demonstrators including women and children were reportedly killed by government security forces in March, June and August in Rangoon, the capital, and in Mandalay, Moulmein, Pegu, Prome, Taunggyi, Sagaing and other towns. During the same period a thousand others, including prisoners of conscience, were arrested and held for long periods, mostly in incommunicado detention. Although many of them were reportedly released after, sometimes brutal, interrogation, hundreds, including prisoners of conscience, were reported, in early September, to be still in prison, many without charge or trial. On 18 September 1988 the army staged a coup and brutally re-imposed government control over the administration of the country which had been almost paralysed by a series of general strikes that had involved an enormous number of people throughout the country. The coup and its immediate aftermath prompted a fresh outburst of street violence that resulted in hundreds more mostly peaceful, unarmed demonstrators being killed and wounded and thousands of others being arrested. Although no official figure was available, by December 1988 hundreds of political prisoners nationwide (including possible prisoners of conscience) arrested since or before 18 September, were believed to be in detention, most of them without charge or trial..."