In collaboration with the Syrian Association for Missing and Conscience Detainees and the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces we are hosting The Caesar Exhibition at the Frontline Club for one day only.

10:00 AM – 6:00 PM
The images will be on display – there is no need to book to attend.

3:00 PM – 4.45 PM
Stephen Rapp, Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes, will give a speech and is available for questions.

Ambassador Stephen Rapp was appointed Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes by President Barack Obama, and confirmed by the US Senate on September 8, 2009, where he led the State Department’s Office of Global Criminal Justice. In that position he advised the Secretary of State and the Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights and worked to formulate US Policy on prevention and accountability for mass atrocities.

He is the most prominent Obama administration official who has spoken out against “atrocities” by the Syrian regime. Currently the Ambassador is spearheading efforts to begin prosecutions against the Assad regime across Europe. He works closely with the Caesar team as the main advocate on legal issues and accountability.

7:00 – 8.30 PM
Panel discussion on ensuring accountability and justice

The thousands of Syrian refugees embarking on a perilous journey to find a new life away from the barrel bombs of Bashar al-Assad, his torture centres as depicted in the Caesar photographs and the threat of the self-styled Islamic State has refocused attention on the war in Syria. With renewed calls for action we will be bringing together a panel to discuss the realities Syrians are fleeing from and how to ensure that they get the accountability and justice they deserve.

Chaired by Ian Black,the Guardian‘s Middle East editor. In more than 25 years on the paper he has also been its European editor, diplomatic editor, foreign leader writer and Middle East correspondent.

The panel:

Mouaz Moustafa was born and raised in Damascus before moving to US at the age of 12. He is the current executive director for the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a non-profit organisation based in Washington DC that advocates for a political solution to the Syrian conflict and alleviating the humanitarian suffering of Syrian refugees. Previously, he worked as a staffer for US Congressman Vic Snyder and Senator Blanche Lincoln, and worked briefly with the Egyptian opposition. Moustafa is also a member of the Syrian Association for Missing and Conscience, and will represent the ‘Caesar’ team at the exhibition.

Usahma Felix Darrah is a German-Syrian activist based in Berlin. He is an expert in politics, Islamic studies, international law and a doctor in modern Syria. He worked as a lecturer in Middle East politics at the Arab-European University in Damascus and as strategic project officer in the city of Heidelberg. In Berlin, he is board member of the Association of German-Syrian Humanitarian Organisations and collaborates with the Representative of the Syrian National Coalition to Germany.

Kristyan Benedict is the campaign manager for Amnesty International UK. In this role, he manages Amnesty International’s crisis and tactical campaigning in the UK. Benedict’s responsibilities cover several conflicts, with the priority effort on the Syria crisis. This specifically includes a focus on transition, accountability and humanitarian access needs in the conflict.

The Caesar Exhibition displays photographs of detainees from the Syrian regime’s prisons and detention centres. The photographs were taken by a former military policeman of the Syrian army – known by the pseudonym “Caesar” – who fled Syria in 2013. Caesar smuggled out with him over 55,000 photos of approximately 11,000 Syrians tortured by the Assad regime. The 11,000 victims he photographed represent only a fraction of the systematic torture and killing that took place inside the Syrian regime’s prisons. After thorough analysis by a first-rate legal and forensic team in early 2014, the “Caesar” photographs were shared with and processed by the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI), which cited them as clear evidence of systematic human rights violations by the Assad regime. Most recently, the FBI verified the photographs as credible evidence for future legal procedures.

The exhibition of photographs has been shown at the UN in New York, US Congress and the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC, and the European Parliament in Brussels.

WARNING The images displayed in this exhibition are disturbing.

In the space of just a few years, Chechnya has undergone a remarkable transformation. Gone are the minefields and piles of rubble, which have now been replaced by broad avenues, luxury boutiques and glass-fronted skyscrapers. It’s virtually impossible to see that there was ever a war.

Award-winning journalist Manon Loizeau has spent the past 20 years covering the Chechen conflict. In Chechnya, War Without Trace she returns to the places she knew well, filming undercover, to examine the lasting effects of conflict with Russia.

Behind the gleaming facade of the new Grozny, Loizeau discovers women and men seemingly more terrified now than during all the years of war and occupation. Although a fifth of the population vanished during the war, a fear of persecution has led to a collective forgetting of history.

Loizeau mixes the moving stories of those who search in vain for their loved ones with footage capturing the newly-polished surface of Chechnya, a country that remains internally traumatised and restless.

Chechnya, War Without Trace won the Grand Prize of the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) at 2015 FIFDH (Human Rights Forum and Film Festival) in Geneva.

The film shows as part of the Witness strand on Al Jazeera on 17th June at 9pm.

Directed by Manon Loizeau
Duration: 90′
Year: 2014
More info: www.javafilms.fr

In a week in which Egypt sent F16 jets into Libya in response to the broadcast of an Islamic State video showing the execution of at least a dozen Egyptians, the Frontline Club held a timely event examining the reasons behind Libya’s slide into civil war.

The event was held on 18 February, a day after Libyans marked the fourth anniversary of the revolution that brought an end to the regime of Muammar Gaddafi after almost 42 years in power.

Mary Fitzgerald

But there is little for Libyans to celebrate.

“The speed of Libya’s unravelling has been quite extraordinary,” said Mary Fitzgerald, a journalist who has reported from Libya since February 2011, and contributor to a recently published collection of essays entitled The Libyan Revolution and its Aftermath.

In a debate chaired by BBC journalist Mohamed Madi, the panelists spoke of the polarisation of today’s Libya, in which two separate governments and hundreds of militias compete for influence.

Mohamed Madi

“The poison of polarisation has seeped into Libyan society,” said Fitzgerald. “Regions, communities, even families are fighting each other.”

Elham Saudi, co-founder and director of Lawyers for Justice in Libya (LFJL) and associate fellow at Chatham House’s International Law Programme and Middle East and North Africa Programme, said that justice and governance had been replaced by a single concept:

“If you’re with us you’re with us, if you’re against us you’re dead.”

These deep divisions have created a need for reconciliation, but this will be a long process, said Peter Cole, former International Crisis Group Libya analyst and editor of The Libyan Revolution and its Aftermath.

“Reconciliation and amnesty takes a generation,” he said. “It’s not the work of a few politicians in six months.”

Rule by law

The concept of rule of law has been lost in favour of rule by law – or lawmaking for political ends – said Saudi. Only 10% of those in prison have been charged, she said.

Abdul Rahman al-Ageli

For Abdul Rahman al-Ageli, co-founder of the Libyan Youth Forum and former security coordinator in the Libyan prime minister’s office, Libya’s governance problems stem from the fragmentation of the three factors that make a state: international recognition; monopoly on the use of force; and direct control over the territory.

Only one of the governments claiming to represent Libya has any of these three factors: the Tobruk-based administration can claim only the first, and that in Tripoli can claim none.

This is not going to change until there is a “mass reform of the state,” said Al-Ageli.

“All sides of the political spectrum believe that the exclusion of those they consider to be their opponents would be the solution to the country’s problems.”

Power vacuum

Guma el-Gamaty, a Libyan politician and National Transitional Council (NTC) envoy to the UK during the 2011 revolution, said that the root of Libya’s troubles was the power vacuum left by Gaddafi.

“Physics tells us that vacuums have to be filled, and what was it filled with? It was filled with militias,” he said.

Guma el-Gamaty

Bringing these militias into the government’s pay was the “biggest mistake the NTC made,” added El-Gamaty, as it took the number of militia members “from 25,000 to 250,000.”

There was no shortage of institutions after the 2011 revolution, argued Al-Ageli, but these institutions were “toxic and destructive.”

“The state incentivises counter-productivity, it rewards corruption, and it punishes efforts to reform,” he said.

The rush to seek remuneration for militia membership was only explained by Libya’s social history, said Al-Ageli.

“People feel that they have a right to receive a salary from the state,” he said. “There was an audit of armed groups, and 250,000 people turned up and said they were revolutionaries. They just wanted a salary from the state.”

Libya’s current political divisions are fuelled by fear, said Al-Ageli.

For each side, there’s a “fear of being marginalised by their opponent if their opponent wins, so they’re stuck in a zero-sum game,” he said.

“There is no rational reason for a conflict in Libya at the moment – it’s all emotional reasons.”

Elham Saudi

In the absence of the rule of law, concepts of justice have become warped, said Saudi.

Crime is “related to who did what to whom, not the action,” she said.

In hundreds of interviews carried out to establish what people in Libya understood by the word ‘torture’, 67% of those asked defined torture “by who had committed it,” said Saudi.

As Libya enters a fourth year of conflict, Libyans must remember what they fought for in February 2011, said El-Gamaty:

“Sometimes they say you have to trade freedom for security, but this is very, very dangerous. I have another name for that, and it’s dictatorship.”

Copies of the book the Libyan Revolution and its Aftermath can be purchased from Hurst publishers.

Watch and listen back:

What happened to the man who exposed the CIA’s use of waterboarding? And what are the consequences of making public illegal intelligence gathering techniques by the US government? In this revealing documentary, three prominent whistleblowers explain the radical changes that occurred following 9/11.

John Kiriakou (former CIA), Thomas Drake (former NSA) and Jesselyn Radack (lawyer and former ethics consultant to the American Department of Justice) talk candidly to filmmaker James Spione about their leaks: how they made public the illegal criminal practices of their own government and faced a choice between career and conscience that put their very lives at risk.

Directed by James Spione
Duration: 104′
Year: 2014

On Tuesday 3 June, with just a week to go until the start of the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict, the Frontline Club hosted a fully booked event on preventing and responding to sexual violence in conflict, with specialist reference to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

From left: Liz Ford, Sarah Cotton, Serge-Eric, Fiona Lloyd-Davies and Dr Juliet Cohen at the Frontline Club.

In her opening statement, Dr Juliet Cohen, head of doctors at UK-based charity Freedom from Torture, said:

“I don’t know how many of you have ever been on a demonstration, felt compelled to write to the newspapers or protest in some way publicly. I went to a demonstration last year about the legal aid authority cuts and I could go and stand on the soapbox and say my piece and be identified by my name. I could be photographed, I could stand in the crowd afterwards and when it was time to leave, I could just walk away and go home knowing that nothing would happen to me. . . . What’s so chilling is to find how dangerous it is for some people in other countries to do what seems like such a simple thing.”

Cohen added a statistic which the panel itself found astonishing:

“I don’t think it’s widely known but in this country Home Office statistics show that almost 90% of victims of rape never disclose to the police and around 38% tell no-one at the time of the crime.”

After the opening statements from the four panelists the question and answer session began. The chair of the discussion, Liz Ford, deputy editor of The Guardian’s Global Development website, asked why we need this upcoming conference on sexual violence when we have already had six UN resolutions since 2000 in some way related to the issue of sexual violence.

Fiona Lloyd-Davies, a filmmaker who has been working in DRC since 2001, answered:

“Is anything concrete going to be achieved after all this talking, after people have come all this way? Because . . . as all of us know here, whether it’s in Shabunda or Minova . . . there are women and men and children who every night are terrified that the perpetrators will come again. . . . It’s a great opportunity but something concrete has to happen. . . . Is it really possible to make concrete policy decisions about reforming the Congolese judiciary in half an hour?”

In response, Sarah Cotton, the public affairs and communications advisor for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Mission in the UK and Ireland, said:

“Firstly, there’s a lot to be said for continuing to bang the drum. . . . There has to be a degree of realism about what can be achieved but it’s being spoken about and this is going to be extremely high level. There is a lot of energy that’s gone into this conference and its an issue – and we are all here today because it’s an issue – and we’re not dealing with it well.”

For more info about the @end_svc conference next week. More info about Fiona's film #seedsofhope head to http://t.co/oO0fNbVy6C ^OSJ

— Studio 9 Films (@Studio9films) June 3, 2014

When the discussion was opened to questions from the audience, the panel were asked whether systematic rape in countries like DRC is a problem that would be better addressed by tackling the root causes of the conflict there. Serge-Eric, co-founder and member of the Survivors Speak OUT! (SSO) network, replied:

“At the SSO network that is the first thing that we spoke about when it was asked to us. . . . The first thing that the women came up with was, ‘Look, the real problem in the Congo is the conflict going on into the Eastern Congo.’ Because of that conflict going on in the Eastern Congo, we tend to think [rape] only happens in that particular area, yet you found women that live in Kinshasa that’s been the victim of rape as well. . . . By holding the government to account, . . . ending that war means we can have a better way of preventing that happening again to the girls of Congo.”

The panel were also asked about whether the perpetrators of this horrific systematic rape in the Congo were aware of the damage that these actions were inflicting. Lloyd Davis said:

“Of course they understand. Rape has been used as a weapon of war for thousands of years so, yes they do. I think sometimes its opportune. One of the very significant things about the Minova rapes was that some of them said that they were angry that they had been forced to withdraw from Goma leaving their own families vulnerable. So they were worried about the consequences of what was going to happen to their wives and children . . . yet they took their anger and frustration out on the women of Minova.”

Serge-Eric also commented saying:

“I think we already covered that a bit by saying that torture is not by mistake, rape is not by any mistake, it’s not by any coincidence. It’s a very calculated act which tends to either put terror into the person who you might be hurting or trying to silence the person. I will not be accepting that someone, because they feel angry somewhere, will go and just rape someone – it doesn’t just happen but it’s a very manipulative act.”

Cohen also added:

“The intention of the torturer is to destroy their sexuality and their future, to destroy their virginity, their ability to marry, many people believe that they won’t be able to have children after they’ve been raped. Male victims of rape are told, ‘Now I’m making you a woman, so you won’t be able to be a man anymore, now you’ll be gay.’ . . . That’s the intention of this kind of torture, it’s to destroy people’s sexuality and their future.”

Watch and listen back here:

The moral dilemma of being compliant in the ill-treatment of terror suspects was tackled at the Frontline Club with a preview screening of the feature-length TV drama, Complicit, on Monday 11 February.

The audience watched a compelling account of the complexities faced by British intelligence services in their attempt to foil terror plots.

The drama, a production by Many Rivers Films, charted the investigations of a MI5 officer Edward, (David Oyelowo) who believed his suspect Waleed (Arsher Ali) was planning large scale terrorist attacks in the UK. He followed his suspect from the streets of London to farmlands in the Middle East and found himself battling the moral quandary of whether or not to use torture to extract a confession.

The screening was followed by an engaging debate between the audience and members of the panel which included director Niall MacCormick (The Long Road to Finchley), writer Guy Hibbert (Blood and Oil, Five Minutes of Heaven and Omagh), actor Arsher Ali (Four Lions) and producer Kevin Toolis (The Cult of the Suicide Bomber).

The discussion started with Hibbert’s deliberate choice of the genre of drama as oppose to documentary to tell the story. He explained:

“Drama has an advantage of getting to the emotional truth. . . . If you are doing a documentary you will come out saying that ‘Yes, torture is unequivocally wrong.’ It’s shocking and corrupting, but with drama you can go in more interesting areas . . .”

In answer to a question about whether people do have a choice in matters of torture MacCormick said:

“The film is not just about torture, its about how extraordinarily tempting it is if you are in that situation and also how, categorically, it doesn’t work.”

When questioned about the alleged involvement of the British government in torture, Toolis explained:

“The important thing is to say that [the British government] does not systematically practiced torture. Britain is a democratic nation. The most awful thing about incidents like this is Britain stepping off the pedestal . . .”

Giving an account of a writer’s research Hibbert commented:

“We talked to MI5, MI6 . . . and they told me that life as an MI5 officer was very boring and I was quite interested in that because I was determined to write something that was different or what I perceived to be cliches of secret service life.”

Playing the character of the terror suspect, Ali said:

“I never felt I was playing a terrorist. It felt like I was playing someone who was vain, a bit arrogant, too cocky, holds extreme beliefs. . . . For me the whole thing was that he wan’t doing anything illegal.”

A member of the audience suggested:

“Defining terror was the ‘not knowing’ and that to me was the key to the whole film – that nobody knew their own direction. They were all trying to play the game to be somebody. . . . I found that incredibly moving . . . in a way you can’t go forward to take a stand, in a way you have to stand still.”

Commissioned by Channel 4, Complicit is scheduled for the UK TV audience on 17 Feb at 9pm.

Less than two months after the Mau Maus won a legal victory over the British government for torture they suffered during the 1950s, Ian Cobain has published Cruel Britannia: A Secret History of Torture, a book which explores the narrative of Britain’s complicity in torture around the world from the Second World War to the present day.

On Thursday 15 November,  Cobain spoke about his book at the Frontline Club and was joined by Human Rights Watch’s Clive Baldwin, Rt Hon David Davis MP, and professor Dr Ruth Blakeley in a discussion that was chaired by BBC foreign correspondent Humphrey Hawksley.

Cobain began by telling the story that sparked his intrigue in the topic. It began, he said, when he was reporting on a terrorism trial at the Old Bailey. All seven accused were British Muslims, but one in particular had been arrested in Pakistan:

“He was repeatedly tortured and asked about his associates and when the torture stopped two British men called Matt and Richard would turn up and ask him the same questions with a glass of water whilst his main torturer would sit in a room behind them.”

The conversation then focused on the UN’s definition of torture, Clive Baldwin described it as:

“Essentially serious physical or psychological harm visibly inflicted on a person for a particular purpose, such as questioning them or obtaining evidence or even punishment.”

He then added that the opportunity for loopholes within this definition has historically enabled governments and secret services to manipulate the meaning of the word:

“What’s now being called water-boarding, The New York Times for a century would call it torture and it was well known and documented even in the American war in the Philippines a hundred years ago. When it became a controversial issue about 10 years ago then it became waterboarding.”

Dr Blakeley, a senior lecturer in International Relations at the University of Kent, spoke of the types of questions she is asked by her students. She blamed the glorification of torture in mainstream media for many unconcerned attitudes she experiences in her lectures:

“10 years ago, very few of my students would accept the possibility of torturing someone – now the majority think it’s ok. What they are subjected to is a diet of total nonsense, things like 24, these are really strong cultural imperatives that drive an agenda and that’s quite dangerous.”

The Conservative MP and former shadow home secretary David Davis pointed the finger at politicians and law makers rather than the people actually doing the torturing:

“The people who wrote the guidelines were the guilty party. It was 2002-2004, immediately after 9/11, you’re a young MI5 or MI6 officer, your task is preventing the people of this country from another 9/11, that’s how you see your task, and you’re given guidelines on how to do it and the people who should be held to account in all this are the people who wrote these guidelines because they’re the people who really have to think this through.”

Cobain finished by saying, perhaps rather forlornly, that he thinks it will take another generation before we can have an inquiry into the British government’s hand in torture in the post-9/11 wars.

Watch the full discussion here:

From the Second World War to the War on Terror, via Kenya and Northern Ireland award-winning investigative journalist Ian Cobain‘s new book Cruel Britannia explores Britain’s role in the development and use of torture. Drawing on previously unseen official documents, and the accounts of witnesses, victims and experts Cobain reveals some stark truths.

With the High Court judgement that a group of Kenyans can claim damages from British government for abuses suffered during the Mau Mau rebellion, and on-going enquiries into the abuse of terror suspects, we will be joined by Cobain and a panel of experts to discuss Britain’s record on involvement in the use of torture. We will be asking whether it is to time to challenge the official line that the UK does not ‘participate in, solicit, encourage or condone’ torture.

Chaired by Humphrey Hawksley, leading BBC foreign correspondent, author and commentator on world affairs.

With:

Ian Cobain, an investigative journalist with the Guardian and author of Cruel Britannia: A Secret History of Torture. His inquiries into the UK’s involvement with torture since 9/11 have won the Martha Gellhorn Prize and the Paul Foot Award for investigative journalism, and has been shortlisted for the Orwell Prize. He has also won several Amnesty International Media awards and a Liberty award.

Clive Baldwin, the Senior Legal Advisor for the Legal and Policy office at Human Rights Watch, where he has been working on issues of international law since 2007. His areas of focus include the Middle East, north and west Africa and discrimination law.

Rt Hon David Davis MP, Member of Parliament for Haltemprice and Howden since 1997 and former Shadow Home Secretary. As a Minister in the last Conservative government he served in the Cabinet Office and the Foreign Office. In the latter, he was responsible for Security Policy and European Policy, overseeing the majority of the country’s international negotiations.

Dr Ruth Blakeley, a senior lecturer in International Relations at the University of Kent. Her research focuses on state violence and terrorism, particularly by liberal democratic states. Her current project, funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council, focuses on analysing the global system of rendition and secret detention. She is the author of State Terrorism and Neoliberalism, and she has published widely on state violence and torture.

At an event hosted by the Frontline Club, an expert panel of speakers shed light on the ongoing oppression of political opposition in Bahrain, one of the most under-reported aspects of the Arab Spring, and the government’s systematic use of Western public relations companies to manage the regime’s global reputation.

In the early months of 2011, thousands of Bahraini citizens took to the streets to demand greater representation and more equitable treatment of the country’s Shia citizens, who make up 70% of the population. Dozens were killed, and hundreds more were incarcerated or went missing.

But, as moderator and The Guardian‘s Comment is Free editor Brian Whitaker explained, the story has been overshadowed by events in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East, and buried by governments in both the West and the Gulf region that see Bahrain’s royal family as political allies.

“This doesn’t justify the repression that is happening in Bahrain, and it doesn’t reduce the need for people’s rights there,” he said.

Organised by advocacy group Bahrain Watch, the event highlighted the organisation’s efforts to draw attention not only to the brutality of the Bahraini government, but also to its use of international PR firms to hide its activities from the global community.

“Opposition has been suppressed by methods including incarceration and torture, extra-judicial killing and the excessive use of force,” said Marc Owen Jones, doctoral candidate at Durham University and member of Bahrain Watch.

“This has resulted in the death of at least 60 protestors, and probably more.”

The government is using what Jones described as “soft tactics” to influence international opinion, including the recruitment of international PR firms to “delegitimise the pro-reform movement and push the government narrative.”

“Since February 2011, contracts have been awarded to 18 companies, 15 of which total $32.5m – and this is a conservative estimate,” said Jones. “All of them are based in the US and the UK…the largest being M&C Saatchi and Bell Pottinger.”

These activities continue unhindered by the governments of the UK and the US, earning London the unofficial title of the “world’s reputation laundering capital”, said Jones.

“It’s worth exploring whether these companies can be targeted here,” said pannelist Adam Hunt, a human rights solicitor and partner in Deighton Pierce Glynn.

“Companies can be excluded from competing for UK government contracts if they are found guilty of professional misconduct.”

Bahrain’s leader, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifah, has set up a commission of enquiry to investigate abuses by the regime. But the panel concluded that although the commission’s findings were important, its report was nothing more than window-dressing.

“There continue to be daily allegations of abuse of protestors and there have been no convictions of anyone with any level of responsibility [within the regime],” said Carla Ferstman, director of international human rights organisation REDRESS.

“The most galling aspect is that they are documenting human rights violations but not doing anything about them,” said Jones. “It’s just a testament to impunity.”

The regime has hidden the worst of its excesses from the public eye and now tortures people in secret detention centres, explained Mohammad Al Tajir, a human rights lawyer who was tortured and detained for more than three months by the regime for speaking publicly in favour of the release of political prisoners.

When Al Tajir was arrested, his bank account was frozen and his wife was told that he was dead.

“The problem is that there is no will to bring justice,” said Al Tajir. “Confession is still the only evidence in most cases. Torture has not stopped. Out of 20 people arrested, 10 will have to go to hospital.”

Asked what they expected of Bahrain in the months to come, none of the panellists had high hopes.

“I’m not optimistic at all,” said Jones. “Maybe we’ll see the release of some prisoners. But I don’t see any sincerity in any of the reforms.”

Video streaming by Ustream

The message the Egyptian people were sending was that they were no longer prepared to live under a regime that used torture as a weapon against dissent.

Nine months after the toppling of Mubarak we will be looking at the extent to which the military regime has continued to use torture against the Egyptian people and their continuing struggle against it.

In the light of recent revelations about Britain’s collusion with Libya over the torture of Colonel Gaddafi’s opponents,  a panel of experts will be discussing the role of the West in not only upholding but making use of torturous regimes and to what extent opposition to torture was part of the Arab Spring movement.

We will also be looking ahead to discuss issues or reconciliation and the need to hold perpetrators to account. Can lessons be learned from those Latin American countries that have had to deal with the aftermath of regimes that have employed the use of torture against their people?

With:

Zahraa Kassem, sister of Khaled Said will be joining us via skype;

Brita Sydhoff, IRCT (International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims) Secretary-General;

Clive Baldwin, senior legal advisor for Human Rights Watch working across the Middle East and North Africa region;

Carla Ferstman, director of REDRESS, an organisation which helps torture survivors seek justice. She is also a member of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Sub Group on Torture Prevention. She has worked with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on legal reform and capacity building in post-genocide Rwanda, with Amnesty International’s International Secretariat as a legal researcher on trials in Central Africa and as Executive Legal Advisor to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Commission for Real Property Claims of Displaced Persons and Refugees (CRPC). 

Additional panelists to be confirmed.