Publications

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”.

This factsheet provides recommendations to the UK Government on how to improve its multilateral approach to Magnitsky sanctions by sanctioning more perpetrators already identified and sanctioned by partner jurisdictions where they meet the requirements for designation under the UK regime, and where the UK has failed to sanction.

This letter, signed by a coalition of NGOS, raises serious concerns about the UK government’s proposed National Security Bill, in particular, the possibility that it might shield ministers or officials from accountability for assisting murder and torture, or prevent victims of torture from receiving compensation on the basis of inscrutable ‘national security factors’. The letter requests that clauses 27 and 79-83, along with Schedule 13, be withdrawn from the Bill.

This report focuses on the use of global targeted human rights and corruption sanctions programs in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and the European Union since 2017, highlighting the gaps in the use of these sanctions. The report has been co-authored by leading human rights organisations Human Rights First, Open Society Foundations, Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights and REDRESS.

This Workshop Manual provides an overview of UNCAT anti-torture standards related to the issues covered in this Workshop, and examples of legislative provisions of other common law African States. It was designed to ensure the Workshop is conducted in a manner that is informed, engaging, practical, and realistic. This Booklet is comple- mented by additional CTI and REDRESS material.

On 13 May 2022, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) adopted the Guidelines on Enforced Disappearances in Africa (EDA Guidelines) at its 71st Ordinary Session in Banjul, The Gambia. This Q&A addresses the key concepts and terminology, the main contexts in which enforced disappearance (ED) happens in Africa, the rights infringed upon by this crime, the main obstacles faced by victims seeking justice, and the States’ obligations.

This Annual Review provides an overview of the activities and achievements carried out by REDRESS from April 2021 to March 2022, with coverage of developments up until the date of printing in select areas. Among our successes this year is the release of British-Iranian hostage Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, for which REDRESS campaigned for six years alongside her husband Richard, and a new initiative to repurpose assets from perpetrators of torture for victims. We also continued to work for justice of survivors of torture in the UK and elsewhere, including through a ground-breaking decision on the torture of a female human rights defender in Libya.