LONDON -- A U.K. court decided Friday that three elderly Kenyans who were victims of torture during British rule of their country in the 1950s can claim compensation despite the passage of time, in a landmark ruling that could clear the way for thousands of other cases.

Judge Richard McCombe rejected the British Foreign Office’s argument that the events took place too long ago for a fair hearing to take place and ordered that the case should proceed to a full trial.

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During an earlier hearing in July, the U.K. government admitted for the first time that people were tortured during the “Mau Mau” uprising. Guy Mansfield, a lawyer representing Britain, told the three claimants that he did “not want to dispute the fact that terrible things happened to you."

Colonial sins return to haunt former world powers

Paulo Muoka Nzili told that hearing he was castrated after his arrest by the colonial authorities; Wambuga Wa Nyingi said he was beaten unconscious as 11 others were beaten to death; and Jane Muthoni Mara said she was beaten with sticks and sexually assaulted with a glass bottle containing hot water after she gave food to Mau Mau fighters.

McCombe wrote in his judgment Friday that he had concluded a fair trial still remained possible. "The documentation is voluminous ... the governments and military commanders seem to have been meticulous record keepers," he said.

Obama's grandfather detained in camp
President Barack Obama wrote in his book "Dreams From My Father" that his Kenyan grandfather Onyango was held for six months in a detention camp by the colonial authorities, returning "very thin and dirty" and with "difficulty walking" and his head "full of lice."

Britain previously argued that the claimants should actually sue Kenya’s government, which took over from the colonial regime on independence in 1963, but that was also rejected by the court.

Friday’s ruling appeared to remove the last remaining argument against paying compensation, though the U.K. Foreign Office later issued a statement saying it planned to appeal.

There were joyous scenes at the Kenya Human Rights Commission in Nairobi, when Nzili, 85, Nyingi, 84, and Mara, 73, and supporters heard the judge’s decision.

“Thank you God, you’ve heard our prayer, you heard our cry for mercy,” they could be heard singing, according to a translation, during a phone call to a commission official.

They are seeking the creation of a welfare fund for victims of colonial oppression and an apology from Britain.

From ITV News: Tutu urges UK to show compassion to Kenyan torture victims

Martyn Day, a British lawyer representing the trio, said in a statement that despite Britain’s admission that the claimants were “brutally tortured by the British colony” it had been “hiding behind technical defenses for three years in order to avoid any legal responsibility.”

“This was always morally repugnant and today the judge has also rejected these arguments,” he added. “Following this judgment, we can but hope that our government will at last do the honorable thing and sit down and resolve these claims.”

'Reverberate' worldwide
Day, noting the age of the claimants, said he hoped the British government would settle out of court as it could take a year for the full trial to be heard. A fourth claimant, Ndiku Mutwiwa Mutua, died after the case began.

Day described the ruling as “a historic judgment which will reverberate around the world and will have repercussions for years to come.”

“There will undoubtedly be victims of colonial torture from Malaya to the Yemen, from Cyprus to Palestine, who will be reading this judgment with great care,” Day said.

Dan Thea, 69, who took the Mau Mau oath at the age of eight and who now runs the Mau Mau Justice Network, told NBC News that there were 40,000 surviving veterans in Kenya who would take hope from the ruling.

More news about Africa from NBCNews.com

Thea, who said his late sister had been raped by British officers when she was about 20, said he was “bitter, still very angry” about the actions of the British colonial authorities.

“It was totally, totally criminal. It was basically racist and the whole point was to ensure that Kenya became … a permanent white settlement, just as had happened in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa,” he said.

“Kenya was not going to be like other African states, free after a certain time. It was identified as the ‘England of East Africa,’ that’s what they called it, ... because of its climate and rich agricultural land,” he added.

'Not terrorists'
Agnes Gitau, a Kenyan whose father was a member of the Mau Mau movement, said victory in the case would show that “my people were not just bad guys, were not militants, were not terrorists -- these were people fighting for a cause” and that “Africans are not barbaric.”

“I was made to believe they were terrorists from a history book, but now this sets me free,” she told NBC News outside the court.

A statement issued by the U.K. Foreign Office said the British government was “disappointed” by the ruling.

“The judgement has potentially significant and far reaching legal implications,” the statement said. “The normal time limit for bringing a civil action is 3 to 6 years. In this case, that period has been extended to over 50 years despite the fact that the key decision makers are dead and unable to give their account of what happened.”

“At the same time, we do not dispute that each of the Claimants in this case suffered torture and other ill treatment at the hands of the Colonial Administration,” it added. “We have always said that we understand the pain and grievance felt by those, on all sides, who were involved in the divisive and bloody events of the Emergency period in Kenya, and it is right that those who feel they have a case are free to take it to the courts.”

The case stems from the so-called Kenyan "Emergency" of 1952-1961, during which fighters from the Mau Mau movement attacked British targets, causing panic among white settlers and alarming the authorities in London.

Tens of thousands of rebels were killed by colonial forces and an estimated 150,000 Kenyans, many of them unconnected to the Mau Mau, were held in detention camps likened by a leading historian of the period to Soviet gulag labor camps.

Mau Mau movement illegal until 2003
The Mau Mau insurgency caused deep trauma on all sides and remains controversial in Kenya, where the first two presidents after independence in 1963, Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel Arap Moi, tried to minimize its role in the national fight for freedom.

The Mau Mau split Kenya's most numerous ethnic group, the Kikuyu, between those who joined the insurgency and so-called "loyalists" who sided with the British.

Many former Mau Mau fighters endured a lifetime of poverty after coming out of their forest hide-outs, never having won the land they fought for as it was given mostly to their loyalist foes.

A legal ban on the Mau Mau movement was lifted only in 2003, after President Mwai Kibaki came to power.

Complete World coverage on NBCNews.com

David Anderson, professor of African politics at Oxford University, who wrote a book called “Histories of the Hanged: Britain's Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire,” told NBC News that the ruling was “amazing,” saying “this moment has been a long time coming” for the British government.

“It astonishes me they do not have the political acumen to understand this matter could be settled,” he said. “If we go to full trial, the revelations in that hearing will be even greater than what we have heard so far.”

Reuters contributed to this report.

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LONDON — It is a court case that could reverberate round the world: Three elderly Kenyans are suing the U.K. government for torture inflicted by the colonial regime during the African country's struggle for independence.

If the Kenyans win — a ruling on the case is expected later this week — claims from others involved in the so-called Mau Mau uprising are highly likely and experts say it could set a precedent that would help victims of abuses in other countries that were once part of the British Empire. 

The court case could also attract the attention of President Barack Obama. In his book “Dreams From My Father,” Obama said he was told by his step-grandmother Sarah that his Kenyan grandfather Onyango was held for six months in a detention camp by the colonial authorities. “When he returned … he was very thin and dirty. He had difficulty walking, and his head was full of lice,” Obama wrote.

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Compared to his compatriots seeking compensation from the U.K., Onyango Obama got off lightly: In court, the two men and a woman described being savagely beaten, castrated, sexually assaulted, and witnessing killings during British rule in the 1950s.

Such stories are not confined to the former British Empire.

France, for example, has refused to apologize for its actions as former colony Algeria struggled for independence in the 1950s and early 1960s, with former president Nicolas Sarkozy saying “repentance” had “no place in our relations.”

And Germany only finally said sorry for a particularly extreme case of genocide by German forces in Namibia on the 100th anniversary of the massacre of tens of thousands of Herero people. Germany does pay aid to Namibia, but has to date refused to compensate the Herero directly.

The United States also has a colonial past with Spain handing over Philippines in 1898. Some, as noted by Filipino academic E. San Juan Jr., say the resulting Philippine-American War saw the deaths of about 1.4 million Filipinos while others put the toll in the hundreds of thousands. Despite this, Philippines and the U.S. have close relations and many Filipinos have positive feelings toward Americans.

More international coverage from NBC News

In contrast, ill will still exists in Kenya over British colonial rule, but in July, there was a potential breakthrough when the U.K. government admitted for the first time that civilians were tortured during the Mau Mau revolt.

Guy Mansfield, a lawyer representing Britain, told the three Kenyan claimants — Paulo Muoka Nzili, Wambuga Wa Nyingi and Jane Muthoni Mara – that he did "not want to dispute the fact that terrible things happened to you.”

However, the U.K. is still arguing that the events of the uprising took place too long ago to enable a fair trial to be held. The defense team expects a judge to rule on this argument this week. A decision against the government would leave it with few legal options. 

'Children were killed'
Previously the U.K. claimed that the victims should sue Kenya, rather than the U.K., an argument the Kenyans’ lawyer, Martyn Day, dismissed as "nonsense" and that was rejected by a judge in a previous ruling. 

In July, Nyingi, 84, told the U.K.’s High Court through an interpreter that he was detained for nine years during which he was beaten unconscious as 11 others were battered to death, according to a report by the Press Association news service.

"In the years before independence people were beaten, their land was stolen, women were raped, men were castrated and their children were killed,” Nyingi  said.

Nzili, 85, said he was abducted by Mau Mau fighters, but later escaped only to be arrested by the colonial authorities, who castrated him. His treatment left him “completely destroyed and without hope.”

Mara, 73, told the court she was beaten with sticks and sexually assaulted with a glass bottle containing hot water after she gave food to Mau Mau members.

Day, the lawyer, told NBCNews.com that “without any question … the [U.K.] government is very worried about the implications of any decision” in the case.

From ITV News: Tutu urges UK to show compassion to Kenyan torture victims

In addition to “many, many more people in Kenya,” he said he thought “significant numbers of groups of people the former British Empire who would be looking at that judgment.”

He said a victory for the Kenyans could help the victims of abuses in countries like Malaysia — the source of recent legal action against the U.K. -- Cyprus and possibly India claim compensation.

Day said some people in Britain “feel perhaps we are superior to the Germans and Japanese and countries where atrocities have occurred, but actually there is always a significant proportion of people who are pretty grim.”

France’s ‘horrific crimes’
The years leading up to independence for Algeria saw one of the world’s most violent and bitter conflicts to end colonial rule, which was the subject of a critically acclaimed film, “Battle of Algiers.” 

So much so, that when Algeria celebrated its 50th anniversary of independence on July 5 this year, France was pointedly not invited.

During the 1954-1962 revolt, a million lives were lost and people were murdered, raped and tortured by both sides; the newly independent Algeria was left economically devastated.

“The horrific crimes committed by the French during colonization are entrenched in the memories of Algerians,” explained Farouk Ksentini, president of Algeria’s National Commission on Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. “We suffered like animals from humiliation, exploitation, expropriation and slaughter … France must repent for its crimes.”

Ksentini said he was aware of only one Algerian who had been financially compensated by France over the conflict. In 2001, a French court awarded an invalidity pension to Mohamed Garne, conceived after French soldiers raped his mother.

To date, no French president has said sorry. During an official visit in 2007, Sarkozy told two Algerian newspapers he was in favor of “a recognition of the facts, [but] not for repentance which has a religious notion and no place in our relations state-to-state.”

The current President Francois Hollande may shift French policy; during his election campaign last year, he condemned colonization and declared, “The truth must be said.”

German extermination order
In Namibia in 1904, German General Adrian von Trotha gave an infamous order that “the Herero nation must now leave the country. If it refuses, I shall compel it to do so with the 'long tube' [cannon]. Any Herero found inside the German frontier, with or without a gun or cattle, will be executed. I shall spare neither women nor children."

The order was issued after a number of Herero rebelled and killed more than 100 German soldiers. There are different figures, but according to one estimate more than 60,000 people -- a significant proportion of the population that some put as high as 85 percent -- were dead within three years and thousands of Demara and Nama people were also killed.

Germany's return of Namibian skulls stokes anger

In 2004, Germany issued a formal apology. It also makes aid payments to Namibia, but has not directly paid compensation to the Herero.

Kuaima Riruaku, the paramount chief of the Herero and a politician in Namibia’s parliament, told NBC News that his people were still feeling the effects of the massacre.

“They destroyed the Herero as a people. They destroyed the culture and the manhood,” he said.

“We’ve lost a lot of things, our land and our property … our cattle and everything that was confiscated by the German government,” he said.

“Now we’re in the minority [in the Herero’s homeland]. We [would have been] the majority here if we didn’t fight the Germans,” he added.

Riruaku said for years Germany had ignored the Herero’s request for reparations.

“It’s taken more than 25 to 30 years, but now they seem to listen … there’s a little chance of hope,” he said. “Now we just talk to one another as human to human … they seem to understand why we are doing this.”

He said Germany should reach a financial settlement with the Herero “in order to … restore their humanity.”

Asked whether too much time had passed for such a deal, Riruaku said “that was the argument before … but the wound and the scar … are not yet forgotten.”

A spokeswoman for the German foreign ministry told NBC News that the German government “admits to the moral and historic responsibility towards Namibia, but the federal government does not allow for individual payments of compensation to representatives of the respective ethnic groups.”

'Kill everyone over 10'
Another infamous order in colonial history was issued by U.S. General Jake “Hell-Roaring” Smith, whose reported command to “Kill everyone over 10” during the Philippines-American War of 1899-1902 caused outrage in the United States. 

Retired Philippines Navy Commodore Rex Robles, 69, told NBC News that “the most prominent issue against the Americans in the Filipino-American War was the devastation of Samar, where hundreds were killed in cold blood by American troops in that province in retaliation for an ambush by Filipino rebels."

"The issue of the ‘Bells of Balangiga’ lingers to this day. The sacred church bells were taken by the Americans as war booty and never returned,” he added.

He said the Americans were “illegitimate conquerors,” adding that the Filipino forces had “fought valiantly against the usurpers, but were faced with superior force and logistics."

However, Robles said that Filipinos in general have a “positive attitude and feeling toward America.”

“This is fostered by the U.S. image as liberators from the Japanese occupation [during World War II], as well as the all-pervasive propaganda stemming from the American propaganda machine,” he said.

David Anderson, professor of African politics at England’s Oxford University, said propaganda was used by countries to cover their past crimes.

The U.K. was a world leader on torture and taught other countries how to do it, he said, but had created “a myth” that such behavior was not “British.”

He noted similarities between the language used to try to legalize torture by the British in Kenya – euphemisms such as “dilution” – and the George W. Bush administration’s insistence that waterboarding was not illegal, but simply “enhanced interrogation.”

What is torture? Ex-CIA official renews debate

“It’s very important to have a broader perspective. Torture has gone on, kind of everywhere and every time.” Anderson said. “It’s not a novelty, and in conflicts, bad stuff happens, so it should not surprise us.”

Anderson, who wrote a book called “Histories of the Hanged: Britain's Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire,” said right-leaning U.K. commentators tended to dismiss “people like me” for “bashing the empire.”

"That totally misunderstands the point and that is not what I’m doing," he said. "The fundamental for me is if torture happens, then we need to do something about it."

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Syrian intelligence agencies are running torture centers where detainees are beaten with batons and cables, burned with acid, sexually assaulted and their fingernails torn out, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Tuesday.

The New York-based rights group identified 27 detention centers across the country that it says intelligence agencies have been using since President Bashar Assad's government began a crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in March 2011.

 

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Human Rights Watch documented more than 20 torture methods that "clearly point to a state policy of torture and ill-treatment and therefore constitute a crime against humanity."It conducted more than 200 interviews with people who said they were tortured, including a 31-year-old man who was detained in the Idlib area in June and made to undress.

 

 

 

 

"Then they started squeezing my fingers with pliers. They put staples in my fingers, chest and ears. I was only allowed to take them out if I spoke. The staples in the ears were the most painful," the man told Human Rights Watch.

"They used two wires hooked up to a car battery to give me electric shocks. They used electric stun-guns on my genitals twice. I thought I would never see my family again. They tortured me like this three times over three days," he said.

Another man, named “Elias” in the report, described how he was tortured by Syrian intelligence officers in Damascus.

“The guards hung me by my wrists from the ceiling for eight days. After a few days of hanging, being denied sleep, it felt like my brain stopped working. I was imagining things,” he said.

“My feet got swollen on the third day. I felt pain that I have never felt in my entire life. It was excruciating. I screamed that I needed to go to a hospital, but the guards just laughed at me,” he added.

Women, children, elderly people
The report found that tens of thousands of people had been detained by the Department of Military Intelligence, the Political Security Directorate, the General Intelligence Directorate, and the Air Force Intelligence Directorate.

So many people have been arrested that the authorities had used sports stadiums, schools and hospitals as detention centers, the report said.

The report said while most of the torture victims who spoke to the group were men aged 18 to 35, they also spoke to a number of women, children and elderly people who had been tortured.

“Interrogators, guards, and officers used a broad range of torture methods, including prolonged beatings, often with objects such as batons and wires, holding the detainees in painful stress positions for prolonged periods of time, often with the use of specially devised equipment, the use of electricity, burning with car battery acid, sexual assault and humiliation, the pulling of fingernails, and mock execution,” the report said.

It added that several former detainees told Human Rights Watch that they witnessed people dying as a result of torture.

'Mildest form of torture'
A former Syrian intelligence officer told the campaign group that the “mildest form of torture is hitting people with batons” on their arms and legs and “not giving them anything to eat or drink.”

“They used … and electroshock machine … it is a small machine with two wires with clips that they attack to nipples and a knob that regulates the currents,” he said. “In addition, they put people in coffins and threatened to kill them and close the coffin.”

At a meeting of Syrian opposition groups in Cairo on Tuesday, participants were unsurprised by the reports of torture.

"I, myself, and my son were victims. I spent eight years in prison,” George Sabra, spokesman for one of the best known opposition groups, the Syrian National Council, told NBC News in Cairo. “They used electricity (to torture me) and beat my legs.” Sabra said his son was also imprisoned twice and tortured more severely because he was a young man. They left Syria five months ago and are now living in Paris.

Khalaf Dahowd, president of the National Coordination Body's Congress in Exile, believes torture in Syria is overshadowed by worse crimes against humanity.

"The regime has committed massacres! Torture is an abuse of human rights. But massacres have happened," said Dahowd.  

Aret Gabeau, of the Kurdish Center for Legal Studies and Consultancy, hoped the report would make others aware of the scope of suffering under President Bashar al- Assad's rule. 

"I was very reassured to see that reports like this are being published so that those outside of Syria can truly be aware of the level of suffering being imposed on the people by Assad’s regime,” said Gabeau. “This is why the regime is so terrified of the press; they have so much power to undermine Assad further." 

Syrian helicopters strike Damascus suburb

Human Rights Watch has called for the U.N. Security Council to refer the issue of Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and to adopt targeted sanctions against officials carrying out abuse.

"The reach and inhumanity of this network of torture centers are truly horrific," Ole Solvang, emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch said. "Russia should not be holding its protective hand over the people who are responsible for this."

PhotoBlog: On the road with Syria's rebel motorcycle army

Russia -- an ally of Syria -- and China have already vetoed two council resolutions that condemned Damascus and threatened it with sanctions and French U.N. Ambassador Gerard Araud told reporters on Monday that reaching a Security Council consensus to refer Syria to the ICC would be difficult.

"As France is concerned it's very clear we are very much in favor of referring Syria to the ICC," Araud said.

"The problem is it will have to be part ... of a global understanding of the council and I do think that for the moment we have not yet reached this point," he said.

U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay on Monday reiterated her position that the issue of Syria's conflict should be referred to the ICC in The Hague because crimes against humanity and other war crimes may have been committed.

She said both sides appear to have committed war crimes.

The United Nations has said more than 10,000 people have been killed during the 16-month Syria conflict. 

NBC News' Charlene Gubash and Joanna de Boer in Cairo contributed to this report. Reuters also contributed to this report.

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WASHINGTON - A nearly three-year-long investigation by Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats is expected to find there is little evidence the harsh "enhanced interrogation techniques" the CIA used on high-value prisoners produced counter-terrorism breakthroughs.

People familiar with the inquiry said committee investigators, who have been poring over records from the administration of President George W. Bush, believe they do not substantiate claims by some Bush supporters that the harsh interrogations led to counter-terrorism coups.

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The backers of such techniques, which include "water-boarding," sleep deprivation and other practices critics call torture, maintain they have led to the disruption of major terror plots and the capture of al-Qaida leaders.

One official said investigators found "no evidence" such enhanced interrogations played "any significant role" in the years-long intelligence operations which led to the discovery and killing of Osama bin Laden last May by U.S. Navy SEALs.

'Tortured' Gitmo prisoner seeks release of secret videos

The debate over the effectiveness of enhanced interrogations, which human rights advocates condemn as torture, is resurfacing in part because of a new book by a former top CIA official.

In the book, "Hard Measures," due to be published on Monday, the former chief of CIA clandestine operations Jose Rodriguez defends the use of interrogation practices including water-boarding, which involves pouring water on a subject's face, which is covered with a cloth, to simulate drowning.

"We made some al-Qaida terrorists with American blood on their hands uncomfortable for a few days," Rodriguez says in an interview with CBS News' "60 Minutes" that will air on Sunday. "I am very secure in what we did and am very confident that what we did saved American lives."

Expert: War on terror at 'critical' point as al-Qaida looks to regroup in Africa

For nearly three years, the Senate intelligence committee's majority Democrats have been conducting what is described as the first systematic investigation of the effectiveness of such extreme interrogation techniques.

The CIA gave the committee access to millions of pages of written records charting daily operations of the interrogation program, including graphic descriptions of how and when controversial techniques were employed.

Sources agreed to discuss the matter on condition of anonymity because the report has not been finalized.

The committee members' objective is to conduct a methodical assessment of whether enhanced interrogation techniques led to genuine intelligence breakthroughs or whether they produced more false leads than good ones.

Report: Bin Laden told followers to kill Obama, Petraeus

U.S. intelligence officials have acknowledged that while the harshest elements of the interrogation program, including water-boarding and other tactics which cause severe physical stress, were in use, the CIA never carried out a scientific assessment of the program's effectiveness.

The Bush Administration only used water-boarding on three captured suspects. One of them was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Other coercive techniques included sleep deprivation, making people crouch or stretch in stressful positions and slamming detainees against a flexible wall.

The CIA started backing away from such techniques in 2004. Obama banned them shortly after taking office.

One source cautioned there could still be lengthy delays before any information or conclusions from the Senate committee's report are made public.

Hidden in plain sight: Inside a secret CIA prison

One reason the inquiry has taken so long is that in 2009, committee Republicans withdrew their participation, saying the panel would be unable to interview witnesses to ensure documentary material was reported in appropriate context due to ongoing criminal investigations.

Current and former U.S. officials have said one key source for information about the existence of the al-Qaida "courier" who ultimately led U.S. intelligence to bin Laden was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

KSM, as he was known to U.S. officials, was subjected to water-boarding 183 times, the U.S. government has acknowledged.

Officials said, however, that it was not until some time after he was water-boarded that KSM told interrogators about the courier's existence. Therefore a direct link between the physically coercive techniques and critical information is unproven, Bush administration critics say.

Supporters of the CIA program, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, have portrayed it as a necessary, if distasteful, step that may have stopped extremist plots and saved lives. 

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Syrian authorities are detaining and torturing children, the United Nations' human rights chief, Navi Pillay said, according to a report.

"They've gone for the children -- for whatever purposes -- in large numbers," the BBC quoted her as saying. "Hundreds detained and tortured... it's just horrendous.

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"Children shot in the knees, held together with adults in really inhumane conditions, denied medical treatment for their injuries, either held as hostages or as sources of information."

Ms Pillay, a lawyer, said she believed that the UN Security Council had enough reliable information to warrant referring Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

"I feel that investigation and prosecution is a crucial element to deter and call a stop to these violations," she told the BBC.

Ms Pillay said she believed that the UN Security Council had enough reliable information to warrant referring Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Syria accepts Annan peace plan, but clashes continue

Meanwhile, the United States has urged the Syrian opposition to unite and pledge to respect minority rights in a future Syria should President Bashar Assad be driven from power, and warned armed rebels and government forces against committing human rights abuses.

Disunity among the Syrian opposition to Assad has fed fears that Syria could slide into sectarian and ethnic conflict, much as Iraq did after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

Skeptical of peace plan
This has worried some governments, including the United States which would otherwise be glad to see Assad's downfall, after a year in which Assad has been using the army to crush efforts to end his political dominance in Syria.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged the Syrian opposition to lay out a vision of an inclusive Syria in which minority rights are respected.

"They must be able to clearly demonstrate a commitment to including all Syrians and protecting the rights of all Syrians," Clinton told reporters.

"We are going to be pushing them very hard to present such a vision in Istanbul," she said ahead of a gathering of Western and Arab nations in Istanbul on Sunday to discuss a political transition in Syria.

Earlier on Tuesday, the New York Times reported that a meeting of Syrian opposition groups in Istanbul was marred when a veteran dissident and Kurdish delegates walked out, saying their views were not heard.

U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford said on Tuesday in Washington that he had received reports that armed Syrian opposition groups had engaged in human rights abuses. He said he had warned the rebels, as well as Assad, against committing such abuses.

Both Clinton and Ford were skeptical of reports that Syria's government had accepted the peace plan of U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan.

"Given Assad's history of over-promising and under-delivering, that commitment must now be matched by immediate actions," Clinton said.

Ford left Syria last month because of the violence but remains the U.S. ambassador. At a hearing on Capitol Hill, he was asked about statements by the U.S.-based group Human Rights Watch that armed opposition groups in Syria had committed abuses including kidnapping, detention and torture of security force members and government supporters.

"We had reports like that last year, when some of the fighting in Homs became really serious," Ford said. "We raised it even in Syria when my embassy was still open.

"We discussed it with some of the local revolution council representatives -- who are themselves not members of armed groups, but certainly are in contact with them -- and emphasized that they would be held to a standard on this if they wanted support from western countries."

The United States had also raised the matter with the Syrian National Council, the main opposition umbrella group, Ford said.

He added there was a danger that more hard-liners who ignored human rights would gain influence on both sides in Syria the longer the conflict goes on.

Assad's government, Ford said, had committed "massive human rights violations that may amount to crimes against humanity."

The United Nations says more than 9,000 people have been killed in Syria's year-old uprising against Assad. Syria says rebels have killed some 3,000 security force members and blames the violence on "terrorist" gangs.

Human Rights Watch also has accused Assad's forces of human rights abuses, including using human shields in northern Syria in their efforts to crush the rebellion.

Assad on Tuesday was filmed taking a tour of Baba Amr, the district of Homs recently bombarded by his forces.

Reuters and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

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RAMTHA, Jordan – One year ago, Syrian engineering student Emad Maho's future plans revolved around finishing his university degree and then starting a family.

The Arab Spring changed that. The 23-year-old says he was tortured by Syrian authorities for protesting against President Bashar Assad's regime.

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Maho is among the thousands of Syrians who have fled their homeland. According to the United Nations, at least 8,000 people have died in Syria over the past year due to the government's violent repression of the uprising.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says more than 5,000 Syrian refugees have registered with them in Jordan. But the Jordan government says the number is much higher and that as many as 80,000 Syrians have crossed into the country since the revolution started.

1,000 refugees flood out of Syria in 24 hours

Speaking from the northern Jordanian town of Ramtha, which borders Syria, Maho told of his arrest, torture and humiliation at the hands of Syrian authorities.

'I always hated the regime'
Maho had never thought about becoming an activist -- but says he had "always yearned for freedom."

“I always hated the regime and wished I could have the minimal freedom other people in the world enjoy,” he said. “When I received an invitation on Facebook to participate in a demonstration in front of the Libyan Embassy in Syria to support the Arab Spring, I was very excited and I remember thinking: ‘When will the Syrian people demand their own freedom?’”

From the front line to front page: Syria's image war

After more than 40 years of oppression, Syrians were not immune to the revolutions sweeping the region. Syria has been ruled with an iron fist by the Assad family since the current president's father, Hafiz Assad, seized power in 1970. Last March, Syrians decided it was their turn to demand their freedom.

“From the start of the revolution till the 9th of July 2011, I participated in more than 150 demonstrations all over Syria,” Maho said. “I made flags, wrote banners and reached a point where I was organizing the demonstrations, capturing footage on my mobile [phone] and sending the videos to Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya TV channels,” he said. 

The Assad regime does not sanction protests – so those who have taken part in demonstrations have reportedly suffered the worst forms of torture, including electric shocks. Activists have also had their homes stormed and family members taken hostage. Many of their relatives have been tortured, killed or simply disappeared.

“I became wanted by the Syrian security forces," Maho recalled. "So I left my home and went into hiding for a few months. But my mistake was that I missed my mother terribly.

"I went home to see her; she prepared breakfast for me and then we argued because I was tense. I knew I was going to be arrested that day. I took a quick shower then walked 200 meters to my father’s shop to say hello and get some money.

Country music, Harry Potter: Leaked emails reveal Assad's tastes

“My mother came running into the store to tell me she spotted six 'shabeeha' – armed men in civilian clothing who assault protesters – walking towards the store.”   

Maho said he immediately realized he would be arrested, but that his main fear was for his father.

'My mother was crying'
“I tried to attack them so that they will only arrest me and forget about my father. I threw my phone away because it had all the videos I shot in recent demonstrations. I managed to hit two of them, but I was outnumbered and was arrested. My father was arrested, too. My mother was crying behind,” Maho said.

Maho said he spent 20 days imprisoned at the General Headquarters of the Military Intelligence in Damascus’ Kafer Soussa neighborhood. He said he was physically tormented for at least six days – beaten, tortured with electric cables and deprived of sleep. He said he still has nightmares.

“I was forced to stand naked on a wall with my hands tied to the ceiling for seven hours. Every 30 minutes they would spill cold water on me and electrocute me. On the third day of my arrest, they realized I wasn’t saying anything, so they blindfolded me, put a stick in my mouth and escorted me to a room. I heard a man screaming. As soon as they took the blindfold off my eyes I saw the man was my father. He was yelling and I started crying. He was on the floor and three men were beating him. That was the worst moment,” he said.

Syria laying landmines on route used by fleeing civilians, group says

Finally, after days of torture Maho confessed what his captors wanted him to confess: That he was a spy for Al-Jazeera since he was filming the demonstrations and sending them to the TV network, as well as the fact that he was an activist and protest organizer. After his confession, he says they continued to torture him, but finally released him.

But even upon his release, Maho says he returned to the demonstrations.  He said his father was arrested for a second time, along with some cousins, in order to pressure him to turn himself to the Syrian authorities.

Report: Emails indicate Assad got advice from Iran

“I knew that if I stayed in Syria, they would never leave my family in peace.  And I believed I could be of more help to my people alive, rather than dead. I went to Daraa [near the Jordanian border] and was smuggled into Ramtha, Jordan.”

For now, Maho says he does not want to return home. He wants to help Syrian families in Jordan.

But he said he would like to see Assad leave the country. “We will not judge him, history will.”  

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Updated at 10:50 a.m. ET: Syrian doctors tortured patients brought into a military hospital in the battered city of Homs, according to a hospital employee who filmed the apparent evidence. The video was broadcast by Britain's Channel 4 News Monday.

Later on Tuesday, the United Nations said it had similar footage.

The very graphic video, which the news channel said was filmed covertly, showed severely wounded men blindfolded and chained to hospital beds. A rubber whip and an electrical cable sit on a table in one room.

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"I have seen detainees being tortured by electrocution, whipping, beating with batons, and by breaking their legs," the employee told a French photojournalist who reportedly smuggled the video outside of Syria, according to Channel 4.

The authenticity of the film could not be independently verified. 

McCain calls for US-led airstrikes on Assad forces

The hospital employee said he tried to stop "the shameful things" that were happening but was called a traitor. 

He said the torture was carried out by civilian and military surgeons and other medical staff including nurses. It reportedly took place in the ambulance section, the prison ward, the X-ray department and the intensive care unit. The footage was filmed over the past three months, Channel 4 said.

U.S. and European governments have been pleading for Russia to rethink his anti-interventionist stance on Syria, in what appeared to be an increasingly desperate effort for consensus among world powers to stop a crackdown that has killed more than 7,500 people.

Saudi Arabia: Syrians right to fight Assad regime

Hundreds fled to neighboring Lebanon on Monday fearing they'd be massacred in their homes.

Calls for action to protect civilians have grown louder as the Alawite-led security apparatus cracked down on protests and an uprising that has its roots in the majority Sunni community and which has raised the prospect of civil war in Syria.

'Pictures are truly shocking'
A U.N. commission of inquiry last November documented cases of injured people taken to military hospitals where they were beaten and tortured during interrogation.

Video: Senor: US could be arming, training forces inside Syria

"The High Commissioner was sent this footage by Channel 4 yesterday. In fact we have some similar footage," U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said on Tuesday.

"It may even be the same footage which was sent to the commission of inquiry on Syria," Colville, a spokesman for U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, said at a news briefing. "The pictures are truly shocking."

A U.N. inquiry documented evidence that sections of Homs military hospital and Latakia state hospital were "transformed into torture centers actually within the hospitals," he said.

Syrian activist: 'You hear the sounds of torture all the time'

Torture has been documented in Syria for 40 years, "usually carried out under the cloak of permanent security legislation," Colville said, adding: "The brutality of the country's security forces is notorious."

"Methods of torture, most of which are known to have been used in Syria over many years, not just in the past year, include severe beatings, electric shocks, suspension for long periods by the limbs, psychological torture and routine humiliation," he added.

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Msnbc.com staff and Reuters contributed to this report.

BOYNUYOGUN, Turkey -- An anti-Syrian government activist described weeks he spent in the regime's torture chambers, saying he sometimes wished death would come and relieve him of the overwhelming pain.

"You hear the voices," Yousef Dandash, a 25-year-old merchant from Jisr al-Shughour in Syria's northern Idlib, told NBC News' Richard Engel on Saturday. "You hear the sounds of men crying, real men shouting from the depth of their hearts.  You ... pray that God takes you before you go back to the torture."

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Speaking at a refugee camp on the Turkish border with Syria, Dandash said he was detained for six weeks in March after tearing up a picture of President Bashar Assad in public.

"They took me to solitary confinement … with no access to a toilet," he said.  "Every day there was beating and torture (and) electricity."

Syria referendum goes ahead amid military onslaught

He showed NBC News scars that he said were caused by prolonged bouts of torture.

His captors then took him to the capital Damascus, where he was put in a virtual underground city, Dandash said.

"There the torture and the beating started. I was blindfolded all the time and my hands tied behind my back," he said.

Dandash managed to flee to Turkey after security forces took him back to a detention center in his town, where a judge decided to release him until his trial. His brother Ammar, who was a soldier, deserted and came with him across the border.

The growing numbers of Syrians fleeing to the country's neighbors attest to the growing violence in Syria where Assad is trying to suppress a months-long rebellion. Some 10,000 refugees are now registered in tented refugee camps and the number is rising steadily.

On Sunday, voting was under way in the referendum on a new constitution in some parts of the country. Assad has said the poll will lead to a multi-party parliamentary election in three months, but his opponents see the vote as a joke given Syria's turmoil.

Syria's vote: Chance for democracy or Assad trick?

The Syrian government, backed by Russia, China and Iran, and undeterred by Western and Arab pressure to halt the carnage, maintains it is fighting foreign-backed "armed terrorist groups."

Unwilling to intervene militarily and unable to get the U.N. Security Council to act amid Russian and Chinese opposition, Western powers have imposed their own sanctions on Syria and backed an Arab League call for Assad to step down.

Dandash called the international stance on his country "weak" and "impotent” and called for the world to arm anti-Assad forces, not send humanitarian aid.

"We do not want food and water," he said.  "We need rifles and ammunition."

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Bahrain must investigate more than a dozen deaths that followed the use of tear gas by security forces, rights group Amnesty International said on Thursday after the Gulf kingdom reported that a man had died while in custody.

Reuters reported that Bahrain's Interior Ministry said that a man detained by police over "acts of sabotage" died in the hospital, without elaborating on the cause of death.

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According to Amnesty, a Bahraini human rights group has reported at least 13 deaths resulting from the security forces' use of tear gas against peaceful protesters as well as inside people's homes since February 2011, with a rise in such deaths in recent months.

Bahrain fires tear gas, stun grenades to halt protesters

A 20-year-old was seriously injured and hospitalized after being hit in the head by a tear gas canister launched by riot police, the group said. Amnesty went on to document a series of incidents that allegedly showed how tear gas had been used improperly, including against women, children and the elderly.

Bahrain last year crushed protests led by its Shiite Muslim majority demanding an end to sectarian discrimination and limits to the authority of the Sunni ruling family, relying in part on backing from troops from fellow Sunni-led Gulf monarchies.

More than a thousand people were detained in the crackdown, at least four of whom died in official custody. An inquiry Bahrain commissioned into the protests and government crackdown found systematic abuse of detainees, including torture.

The ministry said last month it would begin recording the questioning of detainees in line with the recommendations of the inquiry, which also disputed Bahrain's claim that the protests were fomented by Iran through its Shiite coreligionists.

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Washington, which bases its Fifth Fleet on the Gulf island, has linked a $53 million arms sale to the kingdom's response to the inquiry. Bahrain has said it is implementing the inquiry's recommendations, but the top U.N. human rights official argues that Bahrain is not punishing those behind abuses.

Reuters and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

 

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A new lawsuit seeks to force the U.S. government to make public “extremely disturbing” videotapes of a Saudi national whose abuse at the Guantanamo Bay prison has been called “torture” by a former Bush administration official.

The suit, filed in New York federal court on Monday, comes 10 years after the first prisoners in the United States’ global war on terror arrived at the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba. The prison, within a U.S. Navy base, was considered by Bush administration lawyers outside the jurisdiction of U.S. courts.

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The controversial prison was ordered closed within a year by President Barack Obama when he took office, but stiff resistance in Congress over housing detainees in the United States and trying them in civilian courts has left most of 171 detainees in limbo as the base remains open.

Indeed, 46 of the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay have been designated as too dangerous to be released at all by the Obama administration and have been assigned for indefinite detention without charges or trial. Through the years, 779 detainees have been incarcerated there with Bush releasing more than 500 and Obama 67.

“Sadly, Guantanamo is becoming a fixture,” Baher Azmy, legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has helped defend detainees, told msnbc.com. “We come to think that during wartime that there are these blips of decreased civil liberties, but eventually we restore ourselves to normalcy. That dynamic 10 years on is not happening now. …The president who so eloquently criticized it has accepted its existence.”

The Obama administration disputes that characterization. A State Department spokesman told NBC News that it has made clear that closing Guantanamo is in the interest of national security and is continuing its efforts to close the facility.

Benjamin Wittes, of the conservative-leaning Brookings Institute, has suggested that Guantanamo has changed since the Bush years.

"Alone among facilities used by the military to detain enemy forces in the war on terror," Wittes wrote, "detentions at Guantanamo are supervised by the federal courts in probing habeas corpus cases. Detainees there, unlike at any other detention facility, have access to lawyers. Their cases are followed closely by the press, and many hundreds of journalists have been to Guantanamo."

Harsh interrogation techniques
In their lawsuit filed Monday, Lawrence Lustberg and Sandra Babcock seek to shed light on the treatment of their client Mohammed al-Qahtani, who was captured in Afghanistan during the hunt for Osama bin Laden in 2001 and was whisked to Guantanamo Bay, where government investigators later identified him as a man who had planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

The case of Qahtani first came to light in 2005 when Time magazine published secret log files from Guantanamo that detailed harsh interrogation techniques on the Saudi suspect.

In February 2008, he was charged with war crimes and murder, but on May 11 of that same year those charges were dropped. The reasons at the time were not made public.

• Slideshow: Life goes on in Guantanamo

In 2009, a Bush administration official revealed the reason to Bob Woodward of the Washington Post:

"We tortured Qahtani," Susan J. Crawford said. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution.

Now, Qahtani's attorneys, who have been to Guantanamo, seek to shine more light on what happened nearly a decade ago.

"It’s important at this juncture for the public to have access to visual images of what happened at Guantanamo,” Babcock told msnbc.com. “I think people have become desensitized to the plight of the men that came to Guantanamo. They don’t see them as human anymore. It’s easy to distance yourself to what happened."

• From Oct. 2006: Battle over tactics raged at Gitmo

The tapes remain classified, according to Lustberg and Babcock, but the lawyers have viewed them and say the government should release them.

"I can’t tell you what’s in the tapes," Babcock told msnbc.com, citing their secrecy. "But I can tell you that they are extremely disturbing and I think they could change the tenor of the debate in this country about our nation’s interrogation and detention practices."

Lustberg points out that "the Army field manual still allows our government to engage in some of the same abuse that was visited on Qahtani. We think that when this sort of thing goes on, detainee abuse should continue to be a robust debate."

The lawsuit says Qahtani's treatment included severe sleep deprivation, 20-hour interrogations and isolation. It also cites threats by military dogs, exposure to extreme temperatures and religious and sexual humiliation.

A spokeswoman for government lawyers told The Associated Press that there would be no comment. 

Other cases at Guantanamo are still pending. Five prisoners accused of helping to organize the Sept. 11 case are expected to be arraigned at the base in 2012 in what would be the most high-profile U.S. war crimes tribunal since the World War II-era. The five, including the self-proclaimed mastermind of the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, are facing charges that include murder and could be sentenced to death if convicted.

There is no judge yet in the Sept. 11 case.

 

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A 10-man police force is hunting down the husband of a teen bride who was tortured and locked away in a toilet by her in-laws for months after she refused to become a prostitute, Afghan officials told the BBC.

"This is incredibly serious and not acceptable and all those responsible will be brought in to make an example to others," an Interior Ministry spokesman told the BBC on Tuesday.

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Sahar Gul, 15, was in critical condition when she was rescued from a house in Afghanistan’s northern Baghlan province last week, after her neighbors reported hearing her crying and moaning in pain.

The case has shocked Afghanistan, though rights activists say serious abuses against women and girls in the ultra-conservative society are common. President Hamid Karzai has said that whoever used violence against Gul will be punished.

Her mother-in-law and sister-in-law were arrested, but her husband, Ghulam Sakhi, 30, has eluded authorities, Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi said.

Sakhi was identified as a soldier in the Afghan National Army who served in Helmand Province, The New York Times reported.

'One of the worst cases'
According to officials in northeastern Baghlan province, Gul's in-laws kept the girl in a basement for six months, ripped her fingernails out, tortured her with hot irons and broke her fingers. 

"She was married seven months ago, and was originally from Badakhshan province. Her in-laws tried to force her into prostitution to earn money," Rahima Zarifi, head of women's affairs in Baghlan, told Reuters.

Gul was covered in scars and bruises, with one eye still swollen shut six days after her rescue. She was being treated in a government hospital in Kabul, but her recovery needed extensive care and she may have to be sent to India, doctors said.

"This is one of the worst cases of violence against Afghan women. The perpetrators must be punished so others learn a lesson," health minister Suraya Dalil told journalists after meeting with the victim last week.

"This is an un-Islamic and inhuman act,” Baghlan governor, Munshi Abdul Majid, told The New York Times. 

Distressing chapter in Afghan culture
Despite progress in women's rights and freedom since the fall of the Taliban a decade ago, women throughout the country are still at risk of abduction, rape, forced marriage and being traded as commodity.

It can be difficult for women to escape violent situations at home, because of relentless social and sometimes legal pressure to stay in marriages.

Running away from an abusive husband is considered a "moral crime," for which women can be imprisoned in Afghanistan.

Some rape victims have also been imprisoned, because sex outside marriage, even when the woman is forced, is considered adultery, another "moral crime."

Msnbc.com's Sevil Omer and Reuters contributed to this report. 

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