ALISSA J RUBIN Suspects are hung by their hands,beaten with cables and in some cases their genitals are twisted until they lose consciousness in detention facilities run by the Afghan intelligence service and the Afghan police,according to a study released Monday by the United Nations. The report provides a devastating picture of the abuses committed by arms of the Afghanistan government as the American-led foreign forces are moving to wind down their presence after a decade of war. The abuses were uncovered even as American and other Western trainers and mentors had been working closely with the ministries overseeing the detention facilities and funded their operations. It found evidence of a compelling pattern and practice of systematic torture and ill-treatment during interrogation of almost half the detainees of the National Directorate of Intelligence. The research covered 47 facilities sites in 22 provinces. Use of interrogation methods,including suspension,beatings,electric shock,stress positions and threatened sexual assault is unacceptable by any standard of international human rights law, the report said. It was unclear whether any information extracted under torture was used by either the Afghan government or its foreign military allies.
