arbitrarily arrested, beaten, tortured, and raped by special police forces ("Red Terror"). Such incidents took place not only in Chechnya, but also in the Russian towns of Blagoveshensk, Bezetsk, and Nefteyugansk. Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia officially considers torture illegal under Islamic Law; however, it is widely practiced, as in the case of William Sampson. According to a 2003 report by Amnesty International, "torture and ill-treatment remained rife." Hanny Megally, executive director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch, stated in 2002 "The practice of torture in Saudi Arabia is well documented", According to the Human Rights Watch World Report 2003, "Torture under interrogation of political prisoners and criminal suspects continued", and the 2006 report notes that "Arbitrary detention, mistreatment and torture of detainees, restrictions on freedom of movement, and lack of official accountability remain serious concerns". South Africa According to Amnesty International, torture takes place in police stations, prisons, detention centres and beyond. During 2014/2015, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) investigated 145 new reported cases it described as torture, 34 cases listed as rape and 3,711 cases listed as assault by police officers. Of the 145 cases described as torture, only four were referred to the National Prosecuting Authority by IPID for criminal charges during that same time period. This reflects serious problems with accountability. Soviet Union Torture was widely practiced by the brutal Cheka during the early days of the Red Army, followed by the Soviet NKVD during the early Stalinist era to extract (often false) confessions from suspects often called enemies of the people. One of the most prevalent and effective types of torture was sleep deprivation, nicknamed "conveyor" due to interrogators replacing one another to keep the inmate from sleeping. The use of torture was authorized by the Central Committee of the Communist Party and personally by Joseph Stalin. During the Doctor's Plot, Stalin ordered falsely accused physicians to be tortured "to death". Torture was still used after Stalin by the KGB but not on the same extent and level. Spain Torture was widespread against dissidents and those associated with them in the years that Francisco Franco ruled Spain. Such abuses continued into the 1970s and included severe beatings and waterboarding. The Spanish kingdom today categorically denies the existence of torture. However, the Spanish authorities consistently fail to implement recommendations by the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture