(CBS News) Human Rights Watch today called on the United Nations Security Council to refer the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad to the International Criminal Court, for crimes that include the illegal detention and torture of hundreds of men, women and children.

It also demanded that international monitors be given access to detention facilities in Syria where mistreatment has been documented, both by former detainees and the families of those detained and by defectors from the Assad regime’s security forces.

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The New York-based rights organization issued a report Tuesday, “Torture Archipelago,” based on more than 200 interviews conducted since the beginning of anti-government demonstrations in March 2011. Human Rights Watch spoke with former detainees, families of detainees, 검증 토토 and members of Syrian security forces who have defected and who actively participated in or witnessed the abuse and torture of prisoners.

The report details specific known detention centers throughout the country run by the government’s four intelligence agencies (Department of Military Intelligence, Political Security Directorate, General Intelligence Directorate and Air Force Intelligence Directorate). Included are maps of government detention facilities as well as temporary holding centers (stadiums, schools, hospitals); video accounts from former detainees; and sketches depicting various torture techniques as described by those who were subjected to them or witnessed the abuses. Several former detainees claim they witnessed people dying from torture. Defecting members of the country’s intelligence agencies also told the group that they either participated in or witnessed the torture and ill treatment of detainees.

“The report on torture supports the case that the U.N. human rights chief is making, to urge the Security Council to refer the case of Syria to the International Criminal Court,” said CBS News Foreign Affairs Analyst Pamela Falk, who is also an international lawyer.

Torture Archipelago (Human Rights Watch)PDF version of report

A defector who was a sergeant in the Syrian military, identified as Ghassan (the report employs pseudonyms to protect witnesses’ identities), told Human Rights Watch that on January 11 or 12 he saw 12 corpses of men at his base in Zabadani, who had been brought in alive earlier that night:

As of mid-June 2012, a Syrian monitoring group had recorded the names of 575 people who died while in custody since March of last year.

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Because independent verification is extremely difficult, and due to the extreme secrecy of the Assad government, the exact number of those detained since anti-government protests began last year is impossible to tell. However, a Syrian monitoring group had documented more than 25,000 detentions through June 2012.

The Assad regime typically has dismissed such reports, blaming the country’s ongoing violence on terrorists. On Monday, U.N. high commissioner for human rights Navi Pillay reported to the Security Council that both government and opposition forces are escalating the conflict, but laid most of the responsibility for some of the deadliest episodes – namely the massacre of dozens of civilians in Houla – at the feet of government-supported forces.