Redress

Description

REDRESS is a human rights organisation that pursues legal claims for survivors of torture around the world, to obtain justice and reparation.

It helps survivors bring human rights cases against governments, civil cases against individuals, and criminal cases urging law enforcement bodies to prosecute perpetrators under universal jurisdiction. Reparation can include compensation, rehabilitation, official acknowledgement of the wrong and formal apologies. Beyond individual cases, REDRESS builds campaigns that use advocacy, community engagement and communications to target the policy reasons that allowed torture to happen.

It describes itself as the only international organisation dedicated to bringing legal cases on behalf of torture survivors. It partners with national NGOs, including medics, lawyers, advocates and activists, and works with other organisations in the anti-torture movement on rehabilitation, ratification of the Convention against Torture, international advocacy, training for judges and prosecutors, and prevention of torture in detention.

REDRESS operates from offices in London and The Hague, with lawyers, advocates and programme staff supported by a board of trustees, patrons and a legal advisory council. It was founded in 1992 by a British torture survivor who had been imprisoned in Saudi Arabia, after he found no existing organisation sought reparations under international law for torture victims.