A/HRC/27/60 D. 1. Torture and ill-treatment Government forces 52. Government officials continue to commit torture and other forms of ill-treatment at intelligence agencies and in prisons and military hospitals, subjecting tens of thousands of victims to unimaginable suffering. Most are civilians initially held at checkpoints or during military incursions. While the majority of accounts concerned male detainees, there were increased reports of female detainees suffering abuse in government custody. The frequency, duration and severity of the torture suggest that victims are likely to suffer longterm damage to their psychological as well as physical well-being. 53. Widespread and systematic use of torture was documented in multiple facilities in Damascus, including Mezzeh airport detention facility, Military Security Branch 215, Military Security Branch 235 (also known as Palestine branch), Military Security Branch 227, Damascus Political Security Branch, Adra prison, Harasta Air Force Intelligence branch and Harasta Military Hospital. 54. In January, a man was arrested at a checkpoint in eastern Dara’a and taken to Mezzeh, where he remained for four months. He suffered daily beatings. Cellmates were beaten and burned with cigarettes. He was released without appearing in court. In February, a man, arrested at a checkpoint between Dara’a and Damascus, was taken to Mezzeh detention facility where intelligence agents beat him until he lost consciousness. In April, a man detained at Mezzeh detention facility was beaten with fists and a pipe and suspended from the ceiling by his wrists. He heard other detainees, including females, being beaten. He was forced to place his thumbprint on a confession and appeared unrepresented before a judge, before being released. 55. A detainee, released in 2014 after being held for over two years in Al-Ghirz prison (Dara’a), chronicled severe beatings with hoses and sticks and being starved. He is now partially paralysed; medical records document damage to his spinal cord. 56. Accounts of torture committed between 2011 and 2013 were collected by the commission, bolstering its previous findings of the crime against humanity of torture. In late 2013, a woman was arrested at a checkpoint in Jaramana (Damascus) and taken to Mezzeh detention facility. During interrogations, government officials hung her from the ceiling by her wrists and beat her on the head, body and soles of her feet. Scars are still visible. Another woman, a defector, held in Military Security Branch 235 in late 2012, was beaten until she was “swimming in blood”. She was hung from the ceiling by her wrists for hours. She heard other detainees screaming during interrogations. 57. The methods of torture used by the Government include severe beatings about the head and body and on the soles of the feet and prolonged hanging by the wrists from the ceiling or wall. There has been marked use of electrocution. Victims’ physical injuries were consistent with a pattern of torture. 58. There has been a rise in reported deaths in custody. 59. Conditions of detention were characterized by a lack of food, water, space, sleep, hygiene and medical care and denial of life-saving medicine. Such conditions led to the death of detainees. Most detainees reported a severe lack of food, with some losing as much as half their body weight while detained. Such conditions of detention constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. 60. Government forces have perpetrated torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment as part of a widespread and systematic attack directed against a civilian population, indicating the existence of a State policy. Torture and other 10