A/HRC/25/65 54. Beatings and ill-treatment were perpetrated during house raids in Homs in September and Dara’a in July and October 2013. 55. Conditions of detention were characterized by a lack of food, water, space, sleep, hygiene and medical care. Such conditions led to the death of detainees. One interlocutor stated that a detained family member had requested only one visit every six months, because he was beaten after visits and his health had greatly deteriorated after each visit. With inadequate sanitary facilities and no medical care, detainees frequently fell ill. In July, a detainee shouting in agony asking the prison guards to take him to a toilet was beaten to death in front of other detainees. Conditions of detention constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. 56. Government forces and militia perpetrated torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment as part of a widespread attack directed against a civilian population, indicating the existence of an organizational policy. Widespread recourse to torture denotes a systematic attack on the civilian population. Torture and other inhumane acts as crimes against humanity, as well as war crimes, were committed by government forces and militia. 2. Non-State armed groups 57. Areas of Aleppo under the control of non-State armed groups were the scene of incidents of torture and ill-treatment by groups such as the Saddam Hussein Battalion of the Al-Tawheed Brigade, the Northern Storm Brigade and the Coalition of Al-Kifaa’ Brigades. Civilians were targeted by the Sharia Board, employing harsh interrogation techniques and beatings during arbitrary detention. 58. In Damascus, civilians were detained and tortured in August 2013 for their religion alone. Hostages taken by non-State armed groups reported being subjected to physical and psychological torture. In Idlib, journalists have been targeted, detained and tortured since July by armed groups. In Tal Abyad (Ar Raqqah), in late July, Kurds were beaten and electrocuted by ISIS and Jabhat-al-Nusra, Ahrar Al-Sham and Shahid Walid Al-Sukhni Battalion at their headquarters. An interlocutor noted that, in Ar Raqqah, “every Islamist armed group has its own detention facility where civilians are routinely detained and tortured”. Beatings and harsh and humiliating treatment occurred at checkpoints manned by armed groups in Damascus in August 2013, in Ar Raqqah after July and in Al-Hasakah. 59. Non-State armed groups throughout the Syrian Arab Republic inflicted severe physical or mental pain or suffering on civilian populations in areas under their control, during apprehension and/or detention. The increase in such patterns, particularly in the context of events in Ar Raqqah, constitutes an emerging widespread and systematic attack on the civilian population. 60. The rise in torture and the inhumane treatment of the civilian population in areas controlled by ISIS and affiliated groups provide reasonable grounds to believe that such groups promote the widespread and systematic attack on the civilian population. 61. The acts committed by non-State armed groups identified above in areas under their control against the civilian population constitute torture and inhuman treatment as a war crime and, in the context of Ar Raqqah, as a crime against humanity. F. Sexual and gender-based violence 62. Sexual and gender-based violence persists in the conflict. Reporting remains a challenge for the reasons identified by the commission in previous reports. 11