His fellow inmates said he was beaten so badly by prison guards trying to force him to eat that he suffered spinal injuries.

[9] Mas'ud Hamid, a Kurdish journalism student, was held in solitary confinement in the prison for one year from 2003 to 2004 before he was allowed monthly visits, and Human Rights Watch said that interrogators reportedly tortured him and beat him with a studded whip on the bottom of his feet.

[13] On July 1, 2013, female detainees in the prison began hunger strike in response to negligence of their cases by the public prosecution of the Counterterrorism Court, and absence of approval of their respective trials.

[14] As of December 2014, the jail was well beyond its 2,500 person capacity at over 7,000 prisoners of all types of accused offenders, from murderers to traffic violators.

[18] On December 13, 2024, the United States charged Samir Ousman Alsheikh with human rights abuses during the time that he ran the prison from 2005 to 2008.