BEIRUT (Reuters)-
Human Rights Watch (HRW)
Reports Wednesday accused Lebanese police of torture and rape drug addicts, prostitutes and gays while in custody.
Human Rights Watch said it found cases of police placing detainees under pressure for hours, dislocation of the shoulder, broken teeth and nose, lack of access to food, water and medicine, and sexual violence.
The report is based on 50 interviews over the past five years with people suspected of drug use, sex work or gay arrests.
Lieutenant Colonel Joseph mussalum, chief spokesman for the domestic security forces, who asked to comment on the allegations, said the police were "studying the report so that they could respond in an objective manner ".
Nadi Huri, deputy director of the Middle East at Human Rights Watch, said such abuse would not stop "until Lebanon ends its police force culture of impunity ".
The report quoted a man as saying that on October 2010, he spent two days at the Hobeish police station in the capital Beirut, because the police arrested him when they could not find his brother, and they suspected him.
When they found no evidence, the police changed the charges to gay, which is illegal in Lebanon.
"I begged him not to hit me in the face, but it made him more angry and he hit me harder.
He forced me to sign a confession saying I had sex with a man and had been punching and kicking me all the time.
He then asked me to take off all my clothes and look at me and tell me that I am a gay, insulting me and threatening me, "HRW quoted the man as saying.
HRW said the man complained to another official but was subsequently beaten up by a power cable.
He was released for free.
A total of 23 people said that the police obtained statements from them through mental and physical coercion.
Human Rights Watch says these statements are false in some cases.
She was arrested after neighbors accused Tamara of prostitution.
She denied the charge.
She told HRW that she was also taken to the Hobeish police station.
"I was scared when I saw blood and people being beaten.
"They brought me into the office and three policemen started hitting me: hitting me with a fist and kicking me," she was quoted as saying . ". “They. . .
Tell me if I deny that I have anal sex with men, they will imprison me.
I was so scared that I didn't want to be beaten anymore, so I promised everything.
Every time I deny what I will be hit, what other options do I have?
A Lebanese court found her guilty of "unnatural sex" and sentenced her to three months' imprisonment.
When her trial began, she had been in pre-trial for five months.
Human Rights Watch says trial detention.
Others told Human Rights Watch that they were raped during their detention, either exchanged benefits such as cigarettes, food, or exchanged for sex with more lenient police reports.
The United States, the European Union, France and the United Kingdom have provided assistance and training to Lebanon's internal security forces.
Human Rights Watch says its findings "give reasons for concern about whether it works.