A/HRC/45/CRP.7 (ii) By de facto authorities in Al-Saleh City detention facility in Ta‘izz 169. The Group of Experts verified that the de facto authorities conducted torture, including sexual violence, and other forms of ill-treatment, at the Al-Saleh City detention facility in Ta‘izz, particularly in the national security section. The Group verified cases of 14 men and one boy who were were subjected to torture, including sexual violence in eight cases, at the Al-Saleh facility. The torture was inflicted in order to extract written confessions or to punish detainees while levelling accusations of affiliations to different political and military groups such as ISIS, AQAP, the Resistance, the coalition and the Government of Yemen. Those tortured included human rights activists, educators, and legal professionals who had been held in prolonged detention from two to four years. Some of the cases the Group documented go back as far as 2016 when the men were first detained. Methods included repeated and severe beating with sticks, electric cables, iron bars; electrocution; removal of fingernails; the electrocution and beating of the genitals with threats of sterilisation; forced nudity; and solitary confinement. 170. Interrogation sessions during which the torture occurred took place at night and lasted several hours with regular frequency across several weeks. Several detainees told the Group they were then forced to confess, signing several documents using a pen or their fingerprints with no knowledge of what they were signing.238 The coerced signing of documents would usually come after a series of interrogation sessions. Detainees spoke of being subjected to repeated severe beatings during the interrogation sessions before, during or after being asked questions or being accused. Beatings involved strikes to the head and the back, with the intention of causing long-term disabilities, and to the legs, feet and genitals. Interrogators electrocuted detainees using electric cables attached to different parts of their bodies including the hands,239 tongue, testicles and penis, and detainees reported blacking out.240 Stress positions, the removal of fingers nails, and threats including mock executions were also some of the other methods employed at the facility. Solitary confinement was used during the period of interrogation.241 171. The Al-Saleh City detention facility was established when the Houthis took control of large parts of the Ta‘izz Governorate during their southern advance in the beginning of 2015. The facility is located in the “Al-Saleh” residential city, in Hawban, an area east of Ta‘izz city, which was built as a housing complex originally constructed in 2010 with the purpose of creating affordable housing for average-income citizens. It consists of multiple high-rise residential tower blocks, of which approximately 20 buildings were allocated as places of detention when the complex was taken over in 2015.242 It is collectively referred to as AlSaleh City detention facility, and encompasses several sections: national, political and preventive security, and military. 172. For detainees held in Houthi controlled detention facilities the Group verified, as already identified in its second report, the frequent practice of transferring detainees between different facilities. Detainees were usually held at Al-Saleh City detention facility before being transferred onto Dhamar Community College detention facility in the Dhamar Governorate. Between July-August 2019, in the month prior to the coalition airstrike on the Dhamar Community College detention facility, groups of detainees were transferred from the Community College to Al-Ghabra Prison. They were held at Al-Ghabra before being taken for prisoner exchanges. Three detainees described to the Group how they were transferred from Al-Saleh City detention facility to Dhamar Community College detention facility and Dhamar North “Al-Ghabra” Prison, and also subjected to torture during interrogations at these two facilities, including sexual violence by electrocution of the genitals in two of these cases.243 Detainees held in facilities in Dhamar reported that Houthi prison guards attempted to recruit both child and adult detainees as a condition of their release (See para. 264). 238 Confidential sources on file. Confidential sources on file. 240 Confidential sources on file. 241 Confidential sources on file. 242 Confidential sources on file. 243 Confidential sources on file. 239 48