"It's rampant," says Nadim Houry, the Beirut-based deputy director of Human Rights Watch for the Middle East and North Africa, who has taken testimony on hundreds of cases of torture from Syria, "and, the odds are, if you're detained, you will be ill treated and most likely tortured. The 16-year-old boy, beaten, electrocuted to the point he thought he would die, then threatened with execution. Despite this, an astonishing number of Syrian people did approach us, subtly – and often quaking – to tell us that all was not as it appeared, that they detested the regime and that there were thousands out there like them. Each of these agencies is an empire inside an empire, with bureaux the length and breadth of Syria. Earlier in this Arab spring, I spent six weeks in Libya. Each of the four main pillars of the Mukhabarat – military intelligence, air force intelligence, the political security directorate and the general security directorate – has its headquarters in the city. Since 1973, X-ray computed tomography (CT) scans have made possible the generation of cross-sectional views of the body. He was now having trouble sleeping. On the day of the invasion, Maria and Wacław hid in the forest until the shooting stopped, then approached the Soviet soldiers, who asked how a Jewish girl had survived. The father had offered his children to Josef Mengele, the Nazi officer known as the Angel of Death for his inhumane genetic … The sheer volume of such material – upwards of 30,000 videos have now been posted on the internet by Syrian opposition activists – spurred Channel 4 to commission a documentary investigation. As I looked round, he caught my eye and simply uttered the word "Bashar" as he drew his index finger across his throat, before melting into the loyalist crowd. That’s why Samuel Goetz, founder of the UCLA Chair of Holocaust Studies, advises his fellow-survivors to “bear witness to your own experience. MUNICH, Germany (CNN)-- Juliane Koepcke is not someone you'd expect to attract attention. There are echoes of Gaddafi in the personality cult surrounding al-Assad, but Syria's political and security apparatus is bigger and badder than anything Gaddafi could muster. Herman Survivors 8 inch Men's Realtree Camo Waterproof Hunting Boots, Wide Width. Another man, placed in what he called "the electric coffin" – in which a detainee is forced to lie inside a wooden box, across two metal plates through which they pass a current. Auschwitz Survivor Gena Turgel Walked Out of Gas Chamber Alive. Then hung up by his wrists ("the ghost"), and whipped and tormented with electric cattle prods. I heard nothing but denials that the security forces were shooting, shelling and torturing civilians. Having finished in one place, he'd been transferred to yet another branch of the Mukhabarat and his nightmare would start all over again. Each act of brutality has served, it seems, to reinforce the growing sense of outrage and injustice and has triggered ever more widespread insurrection. "And there were old men in their 80s. And like them, they see western-backed conspiracies. In it, a detainee is … Our minder returned, visibly shaken, 15 minutes later. To watch the programme and for more information visit: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/syrias-torture-machine, Channel 4's foreign affairs correspondent reports from Syria on the mounting body of evidence that the state is engaging in widespread acts of brutality against its own citizens, Demonstrators protesting against al-Assad in Kafranbel earlier this month Photograph: Handout/REUTERS. It's 3am and the town of Tal Kalakh, less than two miles to the north – just inside the Syrian Arab Republic – is under sustained attack, its residents reportedly refusing to hand over a small band of defectors who have holed up there, trying to bolt for Lebanon to join the insurgents. Exiled former members of the Syrian security forces have checked vehicles, uniforms and military insignia. Such footage has caused irreparable damage to al-Assad's regime. After the Soviet invasion, Maria no longer had to conceal her identity. "I saw at least 200 children – some as young as 10," he said. In 1944, the Soviet army invaded Tykocin. She had been imprisoned in Ravensbrück and spent a year recuperating in Sweden after liberation. This convention defines "torture" as any act which intentionally inflicts severe pain or suffering, physical or mental, with the intention of obtaining information, a confession or punishing an individual for something he or someone else has committed or is suspected of committing. Within Nazi Germany, everyone did not support Nazism or the Nazi regime to the same degree and to the extent suggested by iconic photographs and film footage of Nazi-staged spectacles. I spent nine days in Damascus, capital of al-Assad's Republic of Fear, as a guest of the government.