Features
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18 Sep 2009The mental and physical welfare of some torture survivors is being compromised by a system that denies the validity of their testimonies, according to the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture (MF).
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27 Jul 2009First they were captives of a conflict in which their freedom and security was thwarted at every turn. Now the Tamil population of Sri Lanka find themselves trapped again, unseen for the most part and wholly unprotected.
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22 Jul 2009First the demonstrations. Then the clampdown. Now, the ‘confessions'. The streets of Tehran have been largely deserted by the estimated two million protesters who turned out following Iran's disputed presidential elections of 12 June. This lull has been likened to the ‘calm of the grave'.
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16 Jun 2009In the US, the declassification of torture documents has led to demands that senior figures acting under the previous US administration should be investigated and prosecuted. Dr William Hopkins reflects on the under-reported role of those who played an equally critical role in the use of torture during the 'war on terror' - the medics.
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23 Jun 2008Torturers would rather the voices of their victims remained unheard. Used as a weapon of oppression, fear and repressive control, torture claims the lives of thousands of people across the globe. Recounting the personal testimonies of those who manage to survive is a vital step in countering the damage inflicted by torturing regimes that would prefer to remain unaccountable. Here, to mark UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, on June 26 2008, we urge you to read the stories of three MF clients who escaped the brutality of their persecutors.
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27 May 2008The "ticking time bomb" argument excusing torture as a necessary means to an end was once the preserve of philosophers and theorists. The past few years have seen this theorising take a sinister turn. Policy makers and state leaders seeking to legitimise interrogation practices that are in fact torture, are pedalling the idea that it is a viable solution in combating global terrorism.
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09 May 2008When the US government was first revealed to have used waterboarding as a means of interrogation, the argument offered in its defence was that it maintained the moral high ground because it did not constitute torture. A growing body of evidence is now emerging that points to a calculated strategy which openly recognised the technique as unlawful and yet side-stepped all other legal precedent by claiming the supremacy of governmental control in wartime.
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09 May 2008After many years of pressure from NGOs, international human rights monitors and Parliament itself, exhorting successive UK governments to remove the general reservation against the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, a public consultation is now underway to consider that very possibility.
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06 Dec 2007On International Human Rights Day, we are reminded that 60 years after the world recognised every individual's fundamental right to be protected against torture, thousands of people are still being driven to desperation and exile by the shocking betrayal of that right.
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26 Jun 2007Today, June 26th, marks the 20th anniversary of the coming into force of the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
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26 Jun 2007Marcel, Armel and Serge-Eric all share similar experiences of detention, torture and organised violence in their respective countries. They met at the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture where they are part of a therapy group. Marcel, Armel and Serge-Eric were interviewed for the 20th Anniversary of the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Listen to their accounts of the torture that forced them to flee to the United Kingdom:
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03 Apr 2007Torture victims treated by the MF include journalists, writers and artists who were persecuted because of their work. Here, to mark World Press Freedom Day on May 3, they speak out in defence of freedom of expression along with MF supporters in the media, entertainment and literary worlds.
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11 Dec 2006Torture has always been on the human rights agenda, yet never so explicitly as today, as some of the world's leading democracies spiral towards a brutal betrayal of human rights by openly defying the international ban on torture.
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19 Oct 2006More than 30 years ago, faced with a growing terror threat in Northern Ireland, the British military singled out 14 men with Republican sympathathies and subjected them to a variety of sensory deprivation techniques. The UK Government then announced it was abandoning such methods. This article explains why.
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19 Oct 2006The rule of law in Western Europe has, since World War Two, increasingly upheld the rights of the individual. Liberal sentiment in the respective judiciaries has gained such an ascendancy that those countries bathed in its light have become beacons to the persecuted and oppressed the world over.
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11 Oct 2006Interview: Long-term MF supporter, writer and comic actor Alexei Sayle talks about his new career as an author, why he doesn't miss perfoming and why he pities politicians.
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29 May 2005Richard McKane is a survivor. Once a ferocious schoolboy squash champion, he now walks with a pronounced limp following an injury he sustained while in the grip of a mental breakdown after leaving university.