Reprieve delivers justice and saves lives, from death row to Guantánamo Bay.
Reprieve delivers justice and saves lives, from death row to Guantánamo Bay.
Over the past few days I have spent a lot of time waiting to go to hearings in district courts in Indonesia, where death sentences are still regularly handed out. Outside the cell where the prisoners were waiting for their hearings, tiny little children and their mothers wait patiently in the heat, eyeing the bars anxiously. Their vigil reminded me of the mothers, fathers, families and friends we met in Reprieve’s work and in particular, of Kari Hilde, Joshua French’s mother.
In 2010 Joshua French and his friend, Tjostolv ‘Mike’ Moland were sentenced to death for the third ...
What is your most terrible nightmare? Is it worse than being trapped in a distant black hole, in an unknown country, unable to contact your family?
Is it more terrifying than torture, by day and by night, when your family does not even know whether you are dead or alive? Is your greatest fear, then, worse than Yunus Rahmatullah's reality?
The law does not concern itself with trifles, and if you ever find yourself held beyond the reach of basic decency, you will be glad that the arm of the law is long. On Wednesday the rule of law ...
Almost eight years ago, the British detained two men in Iraq. They were Yunus Rahmatullah and Amanatullah Ali, although their names would remain secret for a long time.
They were turned over to the Americans and, with full British knowledge, rendered to Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan. In transit and upon arrival, they were badly mistreated. They have remained there ever since.
Nothing came to light for several years as they languished in the Bagram black hole, sometimes described as Guantánamo's evil twin. Eventually on February 26th, 2009, John Hutton, then the Minister of Defence, was forced ...
Last Friday, lawyers representing the victims of CIA drone attacks wrote to the US Ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, to inform him that we were going to bring him to justice for his complicity in the illegal killing of Pakistan citizens.
We gave him a few days to consider his position before we went public because, as well as being a clear breach of international law, the new protocol announced for the US drone campaign has effectively painted a target on poor Mr Munter, and invited angry Pakistanis to shoot at him. My own purpose in seeking justice is, not ...
On Thursday, after countless official denials, the location of the CIA's secret prison in Romania was revealed. According to the Associated Press and SDZ, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed and other al Qaeda suspects were held in a concealed basement beneath Bucharest's National Registry Office for Classified Information in 2003 and 2004.
The Romanian government have always dismissed allegations of a secret prison on their soil, and they still do; a senior official has said that the existence of the prison was "impossible". "We have no knowledge of this subject," AP quoted President Traian Basescu as saying.
The evidence tells ...
As parliamentary elections begin in Egypt, Reprieve's Life After Guantanamo team is working against the clock for the luckless Egyptian ex-Guantanamo prisoner Adel al-Gazzar, now re-imprisoned in Cairo.
Like that of most Egyptians, Adel's future hangs in the balance, as does his liberty, and everything depends on whether Egypt is indeed moving towards a civilian-led democracy or whether the events of this past spring were not so much a successful defeat by the people of Mubarak's regime as a military coup.
In the new Egypt, as with all fledgling democracies, a major battlefield has been in the ...
The Big Give Christmas Challenge is providing a fantastic opportunity for you to help us continue Reprieve's vital work in 2012 and beyond.
From 10am on Monday 5th December, donations to Reprieve are being matched by the Big Give. The 'challenge' is that there are limited funds available for matching, so please get in quick to ensure that your donation will be doubled. Please note that only donations made via the Big Give website from 10am on Monday 5th December will be matched.
False starts and technical difficulties
The Big Give Christmas Challenge began on Monday 5th December ...
I stepped inside the Royal Courts of Justice for the first time, about six months ago to hear the case of Yunus Rahmatullah. I was new to Reprieve, and conscious I should be in the office working so I didn’t stay long; but last week I had the chance to spend the whole day in the Court of Appeal there, unfortunately because the first case didn’t work out.
Yunus was captured in Iraq and has been detained in Bagram Airbase, Afghanistan, for over seven and a half years without trial. He was captured by the British and handed ...
This week I visited Shaker Aamer, the last remaining British resident being held in Guantánamo Bay.
He was originally detained on 24 November 2001, so he is marking ten years in prison without any charge. I cannot disclose what he said to me because, as ever, complaints he might have about his mistreatment, or his chronic health problems, are deemed classified until the United States sees fit to allow me to discuss them. However, Guantánamo is more depressed than ever, as perhaps illustrated by my own experiences on the gastronomic front.
I was looking forward to dining in ...
Bread and butter. These are not the exciting items on my shopping list. They are definitely not as exciting as the All Saints jacket I really want or the red dress I was eyeing up for Reprieve's annual fundraiser on 10 November. I'd always much rather spend my money on exciting things - wouldn't you? But the exciting items aren't the really important ones. It is the mundane items on my shopping list that keep me alive.
Fundraising is difficult at the best of times. In case anyone hasn't noticed it is currently far, far from ...
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