Syrian President Bashar Assad has taken out the torture tool kit his father once employed as he engages in the most widespread and appalling abuses his country has suffered in decades in an effort to put down a year-old rebellion.

“In terms of the number of people being tortured, and the level of torture and the type, of which the more gruesome are now being inflicted, we are seeing the return of the very dark days of the 1970s and 1980s

All told, the report identified 31 methods of torture and other ill-treatment