A/HRC/25/65 1. Government forces and pro-government militia 63. In November 2013, in Damascus Military Intelligence Branch 215, a woman underwent an intimate body search by a male commander before being tortured and sexually assaulted. In December, she was transferred to Military Intelligence in Homs where she was tortured and orally raped. 64. In 2012, in an intelligence branch in Hama, five women were tortured daily, including by electrocution, for more than a month. During the same period, two women were raped by officers in command for 15 consecutive days. In August 2013, a woman was stripped and exposed at a checkpoint near Al-Jadeedah before being taken to the Hama branch, where she was raped. In December 2013, an 18-year-old girl was tortured and repeatedly raped. 65. Sexual torture, including the tying of genitals, has been systematically perpetrated against men and boys in custody in Damascus, Homs and Aleppo. In November 2012, a man was raped in Al Khatib security branch, Damascus. In January 2013, at the Homs Security Branch, security agents beat and electrocuted the genitals of a 17-year-old boy and raped him while others watched. 66. Rape and sexual assaults targeting women and girls occurred at checkpoints in Damascus, Latakia, Dara’a, Homs and Aleppo. In January 2013, a 17-year-old girl was gang raped at a government checkpoint in Damascus countryside. In February 2013, a 28year-old woman was taken off a bus by government militia in Latakia and gang raped. 67. Men were tortured and raped on the grounds of their sexual orientation at government checkpoints in Damascus. In 2011, six homosexual men were beaten viciously with electric cables by security agents and threatened with rape. In October 2012, a man was stopped by security because his partner’s brother was a member of the FSA. The man was taken to a rural area, where cigarettes were stubbed on his body and he was gang raped. 68. Government forces are conducting a sniper campaign in Bustan Al-Qasr (Aleppo). On one day alone in October, doctors treated five men shot in the groin. The same month, six pregnant women were shot in the abdomen. 69. Rape, sexual torture and sexual violence were perpetrated by government forces and militia against men, women and children. This conduct was committed as part of a widespread attack, where civilians were targeted for detention and systematically subjected to multiple violations. These acts constitute crimes against humanity, war crimes and violations of international human rights law. 2. Non-State armed groups 70. In 2012, a Kurdish woman from Afrin was kidnapped, held in solitary confinement and raped by the Northern Storm Brigade in Azaz (Aleppo). In June 2013, a woman was tortured and threatened with rape in Ar Raqqah city for “disrespecting” the Sharia Council. In October 2013, a 26-year-old man was detained on the grounds of his sexual orientation. He was beaten and hung by his arms from a ceiling by ISIS in Ar Raqqah. On 31 October, a school headmistress was publicly lashed by ISIS in Ar Raqqah for not wearing a hijab. 71. Rape, sexual torture and sexual violence perpetrated by non-State armed groups are in violation of common article 3 of the Geneva Conventions and constitute war crimes. 12