2025 In Focus: Upholding Justice in Hostile Times

2025 In Focus: Upholding Justice in Hostile Times

By Alejandra Vicente, Head of Law

REDRESS celebrated important legal victories this year, even as human rights NGOs faced funding cuts and a global crackdown on civil society. Through this work, REDRESS helped secure justice and promoted survivors’ rights, achieving impact beyond individual cases.

In Peru, a national court convicted three police officers for torture and sexual violence against our client Azul Rojas Marin, in an unprecedented judgement addressing discriminatory torture against LGBTIQ+ individuals.

In Nigeria, three peaceful protesters who were shot at by security forces at the Lekki Toll Gate in Lagos during the 2020 #EndSARS demonstrations against police brutality obtained an important ruling by the ECOWAS Court that highlighted deep-seated issues of police violence and impunity.

The case, brought by a coalition of civil society organisations and supported by REDRESS, found that Nigeria had used disproportionate force and that the victims suffered torture when live rounds were fired into the crowd, causing extreme fear and anxiety. The Nigerian government was ordered to compensate the three survivors and investigate the human rights abuses.

In Sudan, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights issued three landmark decisions in favour of REDRESS clients. One ruling went beyond individual justice, calling for systemic reforms, including the abolition of Sudan’s blanket immunity laws. In another case, Sudan was found responsible for widespread atrocities against the Nuba people.

In the DRC, the African Commission ruled in favour of our client, S.A., finding that her right to reparation as a victim of sexual violence had been breached for the lack of enforcement of the compensation order issued in her favour by the courts in DRC.

In the UK, we helped a client bring a complaint against the UK security services for their alleged complicity in his torture, which led to a groundbreaking ruling clarifying that intelligence services must not play any active role in encouraging or facilitating torture by foreign states.

In India, British human rights activist Jagtar Singh Johal, who has been detained for eight years, was acquitted in one of the cases against him after a court ruled that the prosecution lacked credible evidence. Yet, our client remains imprisoned, facing eight more cases based on the same alleged “confession” extracted under torture.

We have urged the UK government to intensify pressure on India for his release, most recently coordinating a letter from former victims of arbitrary detention to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who raised Jagtar’s case during his October visit to India.

These cases remind us why our work must continue: to stand with torture survivors, to demand justice, and to help build a world where dignity and humanity triumph over cruelty.