Henri Alleg, director of the Alger Républicain newspaper and of the Algerian Communist Party (PCA), who himself had been tortured, denounced it in La Question (Minuit, 1958), which sold 60,000 copies in one day.[26] The title of his book referred to the Inquisition, who was said to put people "to the question." Alleg's book detailed the various torture methods, which included the infamous gégène, an electricity generator initially used for telephones, sleep deprivation, and truth serums, etc. Beside torturing actual suspects, the French military also buried alive old men.[dead link][2]