Amnesty has new report on Syrian torture

On March 14 global human rights campaigner Amnesty International is releasing a new report on torture victims in Syria. Titled "Syria ‘I wanted to die’: Syria’s torture survivors speak out", the report will be released a day before the one-year anniversary of the start of pro-democracy protests in Syria. It documents 31 methods of torture or other ill-treatment described by witnesses or victims to Amnesty International. The organisation found that a year after protests began, the scale of torture and ill-treatment by security forces, army and the pro-government armed gangs known as shabiha had risen to a level not witnessed in Syria for years and "reminiscent of the dark era of the 1970s and 1980s". Amnesty International has reportedly interviewed dozens of Syrians who fled the violence to Jordan, including 25 people who reported they had been tortured or otherwise ill-treated in detention before they fled across the border. More than half of the cases featured are from Dera’a governorate, where protesters were first killed in March 2011. The remainder of the cases are from the governorates of Damascus, Rif Dimashq, Hama, Homs, Latakia, Al-Suwayda and Tartus.