A/HRC/22/59 Branch in Harasta, also in Damascus. Two other interviewees stated that boys aged between 12 and 15 years old were held in cells with adult male detainees in Air Force Intelligence in Aleppo. 11. Some interviewees described conditions in detention. A 14 year old boy held in detention in Damascus said that he had been held in an over-crowded cell, in which it was impossible to lie down and that the detainees were provided with little food or water. He added that he and other detainees had had to drink from the toilet inside the cell in order to survive. A 17 year old boy, also detained in Damascus, said that each detainee had about one floor-tile of space each, pointing at floor tiles 35cm2. 12. Children have been subjected to the same conditions of detention as adults. The conditions of detention as described in interviews presented here would, if verified, constitute the cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of those detained (see A/HRC/22/59, annex VIII). D. Torture of children 13. Boys — as well as some girls — have been subjected to torture and other forms of ill-treatment in Government detention centres, at checkpoints and during house searches. One interviewee, a 14 year old boy, was arrested in early July after participating in a demonstration that had erupted outside his local mosque after Friday prayers. Soldiers reportedly blindfolded and forced him into a vehicle, beating him as he was taken to a branch of the Military Security in Damascus. He was released in late October. In the intervening four months, the interviewee stated he had been interrogated multiple times about the organizers of demonstrations, with most of the questioning taking place in a small underground room. He described being beaten with electric wire and a hosepipe while being hung, suspended from the ceiling; being burnt with cigarettes and hot metal; being hit in the face resulting in a broken nose; and being threatened with rape. He stated he could hear other detainees screaming in nearby rooms, both during his interrogations and while held in cells. Marks, including cigarettes burns and other scars, were visible on the interviewee’s body at the time of interview. 14. A 17 year old boy interviewed by the commission had also been arrested after participating in a demonstration in southern Damascus in January 2012. Held until late October, he described being hung by his wrists and being given electric shocks in an Air Force Intelligence detention facility in Damascus. 15. Some children may have died under torture. The sister of a detainee in Aleppo said that her brother had informed her that in July, a boy aged about 15 died in a crowded cell of the Air Force Intelligence detention facility in Aleppo apparently after being tortured. Another Aleppo citizen reported finding the body of a child bearing the marks of torture near an Air Force Intelligence detention facility. 16. Physical assaults also took place at checkpoints and in the course of attacks by security forces. A former soldier, now defected, said he was deployed at a checkpoint in Hama in July and witnessed a 17 year old boy, who was a cancer patient, being beaten, after being found with revolutionary songs stored on his mobile phone. 17. There are reasonable grounds to believe that children are tortured at checkpoints, in house searches and in detention. Children’s detention in the same conditions as adults contravenes Syrian and international law. One outcome of this mixed detention regime is that children have been routinely subjected to the same systems of torture that adults face. GE.13-10627 81