"Some of the methods of physical torture reported by those interviewed were severe beatings, including falanga (beating of the soles of the feet); various forms of suspension; sexual violations, including testicle squeezing and twisting; electric shock; blunt trauma causing injury to internal organs; and burns. Psychological methods of torture included being deprived of food and water, being sprayed with cold pressurized water, threats to friends and family, isolation, immobilizations, mock executions, and being forced to witness the torture of others."
Children as young as 12 are regularly arrested and sent to long prison terms after being tortured. One 14 year old boy states:
"I had to undress...They asked questions that were nothing to do with me; when I said I did not know, they twisted my testicles...Four of them held me by the hands and arms and gave electric shocks to my right thumb, to my sexual organs, to my arms and to my stomach...Afterwards I had no feeling in my right foot and sexual organ."
Human Rights Watch publishes a report describing how weapons supplied by NATO countries (USA, Germany, Italy, France, Netherlands, the UK, Spain, Canada and Belgium), play a central role in abuses committed by Turkish security forces in their campaign to evacuate and burn Kurdish villages in southeastern Turkey.
As a USA official admits:
"There's a lot of misery being caused by the village evacuations. It's being done in a very brutal way, and no provision is being made for the refugees."
The European Court of Human Rights condemns Turkey for destroying the village of Kelekci in the Kurdish region of the country in 1993.
