Gruopvækkende ny rapport om systematisk tortur i syriske fængsler og torturcentre offentliggjort af menneskeretsvagthunden Human Rights Watch, som kræver styret i det hjemsøgte land indbragt for krigsforbryderdomstolen i Haag.

"They kicked us in the head," says Ahmed, a former Arabic teacher from the Idlib province of northern Syria, according to BBC online Tuesday.

"They took their boots and forced them into our mouths. They did this to make us say 'There is no God but Bashar [al Assad.]' I refused, so the soldier broke my nose.

"I started bleeding and my blood was on the soldier's shirt. He told me that I had dirtied his shirt with my bad blood."

Along with many others, Ahmed took part in opposition demonstrations. For this, he was arrested by Syria's security forces.

At one point Ahmed says that the beatings were so bad that he offered to pay his guards to kill him to end his pain.

Ahmed has now escaped to southern Turkey, where he joins more than 30.000 Syrian refugees.

The account reinforce many of the findings of a new Human Rights Watch (HRW) report into torture in Syria, issued Tuesday.

The organisation accuses the Syrian state of using 27 detention centres and pursuing what amounts to a state policy of torture.

It calls for the UN Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court. But this is a move that can be blocked by Syria's most powerful ally, Russia.

Læs hele den grumme pressemeddelelse om rapporten fra HRW på
http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/07/03/syria-torture-centers-revealed