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

The New York-based group identified 27 detention centers that it says intelligence agencies have been using since President Bashar al-Assad's government began a crackdown on an uprising that began in March 2011. [Reuters]

Read the full report here: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2012/07/03/torture-archipelago-0