A/HRC/27/60 found to constitute cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment by the Human Rights Committee and the Committee against Torture. 71. ISIS, by whipping detainees and hostages in its custody, has committed torture in violation of its binding obligations under common article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. The conditions of detention recorded constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. 72. ISIS punishments involving amputations and beating people until they are bloody or scarred rise to the level of torture and amount to mutilation. The public nature of the punishments, including the display of persons on crucifixes, constitutes cruel and degrading treatment. 73. ISIS inflicts severe physical or mental pain or suffering on civilian populations in areas under its control, a continuation of the previously identified widespread and systematic attack on the civilian population. The rise in torture and the cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of the civilian population in Ar Raqqah governorate further attests to that continuing attack. Torture has also been committed systematically against captured Free Syrian Army (FSA) and YPG fighters. 74. ISIS has committed war crimes of torture and cruel treatment. Their conduct forming part of the attack identified in paragraph 38 above, ISIS has committed crimes against humanity of torture and other inhumane acts in Ar Raqqah and Aleppo governorates. E. Sexual and gender-based violence 75. Underreporting and delayed reports of sexual violence have made an assessment of its magnitude difficult. In interviews with female refugees, fear of rape is often cited as a major factor in their decision to leave the Syrian Arab Republic. 1. Government forces 76. Reports of rape and sexual assaults of women at detention facilities in Damascus, dating from 2012 to the present, continue to be received. In January 2013, a woman who was threatened with rape stated that other female detainees had been sexually assaulted in Mezzeh detention facility. In October 2013, another detainee in the same centre reported being forced to strip, being sexually assaulted and threatened with rape. A similar pattern of sexual violence was documented at Military Security Branch 215 and General Security Directorate Branch 251. In January 2014, a male government interrogator at Adra prison touched the breasts of a female detainee and inserted his fingers into her vagina. Female detainees were forced to strip naked and were threatened either with rape or with being displayed to male inmates. Girls as young as 13, held with adult female detainees, suffered sexual assault by detention officers. 77. Government forces have perpetrated rape as a war crime. Forming part of the attack referred to in paragraph 28 above, that conduct also constitutes a crime against humanity. In its sexual assaults, the Government has committed the war crime of outrages on personal dignity. 78. Gender-based violence, directed at women and men, continues to be documented. Government forces, notably in Rif Damascus and Dara’a governorates, arrest and detain women to force the surrender of their male relatives. Men and boys over the age of 12 years continue to be targeted on the basis of their gender. Arrests of men and boys at checkpoints ringing restive areas are commonplace, with the consequence that male civilians inside 12