Publications

Between March and July 2022, REDRESS sought the views of UK-based survivors of torture and their family members in the UK on what justice means to them in practice, why it was important, and what were their key barriers to achieving justice within the UK. Through interviews and conversations with 18 survivors of torture and their family members, the resulting report, ‘Whose Justice? Reflections from UK-based survivors of torture’, identified a series of broad recommendations to the UK Government to improve access to justice, accountability, and reparation for survivors of torture. Through further detailed consultation with survivors between October and December 2022, the following recommendations have been developed and endorsed by survivors.

Briefing by Reprieve and REDRESS for Backbench Business Committee debate on 19 January 2023. 

This Practice Note considers 10 possible impacts of strategic litigation and provides examples on how to strengthen these impacts. It discusses in detail the process of impact evaluation, answering the question of when an impact evaluation should be conducted and by whom. The Practice Note also considers common challenges in evaluation of impact for strategic litigation of torture.

This Practice Note highlights some good practices for case management in the context of torture and ill-treatment. It also covers the basic building blocks of effective case management and general principles for digital security for effective case management.

This Guide provides information for survivors of torture, their families, friends, and front-line service providers who are based in the UK about the options available to seek justice, reparation, and accountability for the torture suffered. Guide translators: Arabic: Nour Mahameed, Balkees Mgadami

In this open letter, REDRESS and 19 Egyptian and international non-governmental organisations urge the Embassies of Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States to Egypt, and the European Union Delegation to Egypt, to take action to end the restrictive and arbitrary measures imposed on members of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR). These measures, which include travel bans, asset freezes and unreasonably prolonged judicial investigations, constitute serious violations of the right to freedom of association, and reflect Egypt’s broader attempts to stifle independent civil society.

This submission responds to a call for input from the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture on the challenges preventing effective accountability and justice for victims and survivors of torture, and good practices on the duty to investigate crimes of torture. REDRESS’s submission identifies: Inadequacies in national legal frameworks against torture, including the failure to properly criminalise torture, and procedural barriers to accountability; Obstacles to national investigations and prosecutions of torture, in particular illustrated by the case of Sudan; Specific challenges for the investigation of discriminatory torture, in particular torture against LGBTIQ+ persons and human rights defenders, and opportunities to strengthen mutual legal assistance in the investigation and prosecution of torture as an international crime.

This report, authored by the Free Nazanin Campaign and REDRESS, details for the first time the systematic pattern of human rights abuses committed through Iran’s hostage-taking practice. The report draws in part from detailed testimonies from 26 victims of hostage-taking or their family members, who shared their experiences from their initial detention and interrogation through illegitimate legal proceedings, abuses suffered during imprisonment, false and abusive propaganda by the regime, and their use as “diplomatic assets”.