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Brutal beatings, sexual abuse, and electric shocks are being carried out on detainees, including teenage children, in Egypt, according to testimonies gathered by the BBC. 

As many 20,000 people are estimated to have been held since last July in a sweeping clampdown on dissent.

A growing number are now emerging from police stations and prisons with serious allegations of torture.

The claims are denied by the military-backed interim government.

For 15-year old Ahmed Abdel Fattah, the trouble began on 24 January, when his fondness for his mobile phone cost him his freedom.

He was using the phone to film an Islamist protest near his home in Sharqiya Province, north of Cairo.

"I was curious," he said. "Why shouldn't I film something that I see every night on TV?"

When some local thugs tried to steal the phone he refused to hand it over, so they handed him over to the police.

The softly-spoken and neatly dressed teenager says that was the start of 34 days of torture at a local police station.

"They electrocuted me in sensitive places like my spine, here and here on my arms, and in sensitive areas like between my legs," he said, gesturing to the areas.

"And when they electrocuted me I used to fall down on the ground, and I could not stand up. At the same time they were beating me. And sometimes they would throw water to increase the voltage."

Ahmed said he got special attention from the police - in spite of his youth - because he was suspected of belonging to the banned Muslim Brotherhood.

"They wanted me to be afraid," he said. "They thought I would have a lot to confess to. Of course I am not from the Brotherhood at all. They were saying so-and-so is getting outside financing, and this person has weapons, and you are getting weapons from them. They said you had Molotov Cocktails on you and you hit an officer. I told him I could not hit an ant."

Ahmed says he was accused of carrying a total of 18 Molotov Cocktails, though a previously broken arm means he struggles to lift much.

His father Abdel Fattah, a school inspector, sat grim-faced alongside him, as he gave his account. He said Ahmed suffers from epilepsy, and his health has worsened since his arrest.

"Egypt has gone back to the systematic torture of the Mubarak era," said Gamal Eid, of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information. "There is more torture now because there are more people being arrested. What's different is that the proportion of barbaric torture is higher."