Amnesty International reported on Sunday it has credible evidence that post-coup detainees in Turkey are being beaten and tortured, including by rape.
In a statement posted on its website, the human rights organization demanded independent monitors be given immediate access to detainees being held in sports centers, police headquarters and courthouses.
Amnesty said more than 10,000 people have been detained since the failed coup of July 15 in a crackdown focused against the military.
The group charged that Turkish police in Ankara and Istanbul are keeping detainees in stress positions for up to two days at a time, beating them and denying them food, water and medical treatment. The detainees are being held arbitrarily and are denied access to lawyers and family, and are not properly informed of the charges against them, Amnesty said.
Amnesty said it interviewed lawyers, doctors and a person on duty in a detention facility who insisted on anonymity for security reasons.
Interviewees gave Amnesty “extremely alarming accounts of torture and other ill-treatment of detainees.” According to the group, the worst treatment in detention was reserved for higher-ranking military officers.
Lawyers in Ankara cited detainees as saying they witnessed senior military officers being raped.
“Reports of abuse including beatings and rape in detention are extremely alarming, especially given the scale of detentions that we have seen in the past week. The grim details that we have documented are just a snapshot of the abuses that might be happening in places of detention,” said Amnesty International’s Europe director John Dalhuisen.
“It is absolutely imperative that the Turkish authorities halt these abhorrent practices and allow international monitors to visit all these detainees in the places they are being held.”