Annual Report 2008

Transcription

Annual Report 2008

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Annual Report
2008
Reprieve Annual Report 2008
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Delivering justice.
Saving lives.
Reprieve uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners,
from death row to Guantánamo Bay.
We investigate, we litigate and we educate. Working on the frontline
we provide legal support for prisoners unable to pay for it themselves.
We promote the rule of law around the world, and secure each person’s
right to a fair trial. In doing so, we save lives.
Reprieve’s lawyers currently represent over 30 prisoners in
Guantánamo Bay, and are conducting investigations into ‘extraordinary
renditions’ and secret prisons in the so-called ‘War on Terror’. Reprieve
also continues to assist British Nationals on death row around the
world, currently working on behalf of 21 clients in 10 countries.
Chairman’s Report
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Chair’s Report
Paul Hamann
It would be easy to become depressed by
the scale of the injustices that Reprieve seeks
to address. Yet, as Chair, I am always astonished
by how much hope Reprieve generates: in its
clients, its supporters, its staff and its volunteers.
We try always to focus on the person, and bring
light to the darkest corners of the world’s prisons
and death rows. Perhaps it is this focus on
individuals and their stories that generates a
connection and desire for fairness in all of us.
2008 has seen Reprieve continue to grow in
size, impact, stature and maturity. Holding
governments to account on their commitments
to rule of law and human rights, we continue to
work towards a world without illegal detention,
torture and state-sanctioned killing.
This Year’s Highlights
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Here’s a short summary of some of the year’s highlights:
Death Penalty
For the Death Penalty team, the year saw the long-sought release
of Kenny Richey, a Scot who spent 21 years on Ohio’s death row.
The team now assists on the cases of 20 British nationals facing the
death penalty in 8 different countries around the world, including the
USA and Pakistan, and produces steadily positive results. In addition
to Kenny’s release, Chan King Yu’s drug trafficking sentence was
quashed in Malaysia and Le Manh Luong’s death sentence in Vietnam
was commuted.
As well as sending 15 volunteers to capital defence offices in
Louisiana and Texas, Reprieve commissioned two Fellows for critical
one-year assignments in the USA: Kate Black is spending her year at
Texas Defender Service, challenging the use of ‘experts’ in death penalty
trials who claim to predict the ‘future dangerousness’ of a defendant.
Patrick Mulvaney is on the front line at Alabama’s Death Row,
representing people who would not otherwise have an attorney.
Expanding our goals across the globe, Reprieve this year awarded
its first Fellowship in Pakistan to Sultana Noon. Funded by Lush, Sultana
is assisting on the cases of British nationals facing the death penalty in
Pakistan. She is also investigating the network of illegal secret prisons
in the region.
Back in London, Reprieve ran two highly successful and respected
death penalty defence training courses, together with the charity Amicus,
which were attended by over 200 keen participants.
Guantánamo Bay
2008 brought consistent high profile success for our Guantánamo
team, with seven of the prisoners Reprieve represents released from
Guantánamo Bay.
On May 1st, the Al Jazeera journalist Sami Al Haj was released
and reunited with his wife and young son in Sudan. He had spent
6 years in the prison.
Another client, 51-year-old father of four Mustafa Ibrahim Al Hassam,
was released after 6 years and also repatriated to Sudan.
Meanwhile, Reprieve’s historic victory in Belbacha v. Bush opened
the US courts to Guantánamo prisoners’ claims that being sent back to
their native countries would spell torture.
Back in the UK, Reprieve launched a high-profile case against the
British government on behalf of Binyam Mohamed. The case was aimed
at forcing the British government to share evidence supporting Binyam’s
claim that ‘confessions’ were tortured out of him by the US government.
Crucially, the hearing also revealed the extent of the UK’s complicity
in Binyam’s rendering, illegal detention and torture.
This Year’s Highlights
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Massive Attack’s Meltdown.
Extraordinary Rendition
Behind the scenes, Reprieve continued to investigate the murky
international network of secret prisons and ‘ghost’ detainees.
Our investigators published wide-ranging reports and submissions
on British, Scottish and Irish involvement in renditions and the involvement
of the UK Overseas Territories in the US rendition system. This cuttingedge work forced Foreign Secretary David Miliband to write a letter
apologising for misleading parliament by denying that Diego Garcia had
been used for US rendition flights.
Within government, Reprieve contributed to hearings in the UK and
European Parliaments which revealed UK and European complicity in
renditions to secret prisons. We went on to assist the Council of Europe
and the European Parliament in their separate inquiries into Member
States’ involvement.
Public Education
Out in the ‘court of public opinion’, Reprieve built upon highly successful
public education work with two creative and quirky initiatives: Fair Trial
My Arse and the Meltdown festival. Both events ratcheted up public
awareness about the lack of justice for prisoners in Guantánamo.
Across the globe, it is difficult to think of another organisation which
is as effective, creative and fearless as Reprieve. The audacity of our
mission is matched by the energy of our people, and 2008 was as
exciting a year as we’ve had. And yet there is so much urgent work
still to be done. Dark challenges lie ahead, but so too do unimaginable
victories for Reprieve. Expect nothing less.
Why I support Reprieve
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Why I support Reprieve
Martha Lane Fox
“You save one life, you save the world”. These wise words from Goethe
sum up why I joined Reprieve right at the beginning of its life in 2000.
Back then it was the height of the crazy dot com mania and we would
have our first reprieve board meetings in the chaos of the lastminute.com
office in amongst airline tickets and boxes. It is incredible to me to see the
amazing journey that the organisation has been on since then.
Reprieve is not a cuddly cause, it is not a charity that is dealing
with easy subjects and it is not immediately appealing to a mainstream
audience – yet the issues we champion and the work that is done
address the fundamentals of our society. Establishing the rule of law and
making sure everyone has access to legal representation has never been
more important.
I was lucky enough to see this extraordinary work at its most
rewarding in 2003. I gave a relatively modest amount to Reprieve
so that work could be done to find one missing piece of DNA evidence
in the case of Ryan Matthews. Ryan was the youngest person on death
row and faced a lifetime behind bars. Due to the hard work of Shauneen
Lambe and the team, the evidence was secured and Ryan walked free.
In addition, the Supreme Court raised the minimum age courts were
allowed to sentence people to this ultimate punishment. Ryan is now
married and expecting a child.
Reprieve has grown and changed immeasurably since those first
board meetings but the fearlessness and courage of all the young people
that work there has remained constant. As our work has extended into
murky worlds of secret prisons and Guantánamo, these young lawyers
put themselves in complex and difficult situations all the time –
supporting them and therefore helping them to do their crucial work is
extremely rewarding.
I urge you to read this annual report then open your chequebooks
and donate to us – the work is vital, inspiring, important and
unfortunately, increasing!
Well, is there anyone who is in favour of torture?
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Well, is there anyone
who is in favour of
torture?
Julie Christie
Apparently, there is. And the shock of discovering that such people –
in our own and allied governments, in the military, in the intelligence
services – were first concealing their support for torture and then
justifying it was one of the factors that prompted me to accept Reprieve’s
request to become one of their patrons.
I imagine that everyone was as shocked as I was by the photos
from Abu Ghraib. But it was a fluke that brought those photos to the
attention of the public – a fluke that won’t be allowed to happen again.
Clearly that was the tip of an enormous iceberg. Obviously such torture
had been the norm for quite a long time or it would not have been
photographed as if it was a normal past-time. And, obviously once the
danger of more disclosure was over, it would go on and on happening
all over the world.
The next shock came with the realisation that it was not only an
American norm – it was one in which the British participated and were
therefore responsible for as much as anyone else. As each layer was
peeled back, more rot that had previously been hidden from public
view emerged.
For instance, the discovery that poor people in Pakistan and
Afghanistan were being paid bounties to hand over suspects.
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Well, is there anyone who is in favour of torture?
This meant that anyone with a grudge against a neighbour or stranger
in the area could pass their name over and the people concerned would
disappear into the torture chambers. So, on top of everything else,
I realised that the authorities were not interested in finding ‘terrorists’,
they were more interested in body counts because to the paranoid
governments instigating this course of action everyone was guilty.
And maybe we are – of naïveté. What was I doing thinking that Britain
was just turning a blind eye to torture and not participating in it?
I imagine that those realisations made most people as angry as
they made me. The subterfuge, the hypocrisy, the grovelling to the Bush
administration… I found that anger and shock overwhelming and the
only way to deal with those emotions is to take action. And that’s what
Reprieve does – with its lawyers, who fight for the basic right of a fair trial
for the accused and are trying to unravel the vast system of kidnap and
torture called the War on Terror.
Reprieve’s very skilled administration – the lawyers and other
organisations working in this field to expose what is happening to the
public – serve us by their efforts to prevent our government and our
military and intelligence services from working outside the law.
I was asked to be one of Reprieve’s patrons and I eagerly accepted.
It helps to be connected to one of the several organisations that are
actively engaged in exposing and, we hope, bringing an end to the
whole intolerable machinations of the ‘War on Terror’.
Death Penalty
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Death Penalty
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Death Penalty
Reprieve’s Death Penalty Team has gone from
strength to strength and now assists on the
cases of 20 British nationals facing the death
penalty in 8 different countries around the world.
We have fellows working on the frontline in the
Deep South in the US and in Pakistan.
This year saw many positive developments,
including the release of Kenny Richey in the
USA and Chan King Yu in Malaysia, as well
as the commutation of Le Manh Luong’s death
sentence in Vietnam.
Kenny Richey reunited with
his mum and brother.
Kenny Richey
In January 2008, Kenny Richey was released after spending 21 years
on Ohio’s death row.
Kenny was sentenced to death on 1987 after being convicted of the
murder of a two-year-old girl. The prosecution claimed that Kenny was
trying to kill his ex-girlfriend by starting a fire in an apartment building where
he was supposed to be babysitting the child who died. At trial, the State
presented highly dubious forensic evidence that the fire must have been
deliberately started. This evidence was subsequently condemned by
forensic experts as based on ‘unsound scientific principles’, in part
because the carpet relied upon had been lying in an outside dump for
Death Penalty
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several months before testing.
In August 2007, Kenny’s conviction was overturned on the basis
that he had received inadequate legal representation at his trial, and he
was transferred to the county jail, where he was awaiting a retrial. Then,
in January of 2008, Kenny reached an agreement with the prosecution
which saw him released without facing retrial. He has now moved back
to Scotland and is living in Edinburgh.
Le Manh Luong
Le Manh Luong was born in Vietnam in 1960. In 1980, Luong fled Vietnam
for Hong Kong and travelled on to the UK in 1983. He became a British
citizen and began working as a car mechanic in South London. He has
two British sons who, along with his extended family, still live in South
East London.
In 2004, Luong travelled to Vietnam and was arrested on 25th June
2004 at the Cha Lo border between Vietnam and Laos. He was charged
and convicted of trafficking of heroin, illegally buying and selling a pistol
and bullets and forgery of identity documents. Luong was sentenced to
death on 25th November 2006.
Reprieve carried out extensive investigations in the UK and Vietnam
and learned that Mr Luong had suffered severe brain damage after his
house was bombed by a B52 bomber in the Vietnam War. Reprieve was
therefore able to supplement Mr Luong’s clemency petition with an expert
report from a consultant psychiatrist, as well as a report on the international
trend towards the abolition of the death penalty, especially for the mentally
ill. In addition, at the urging of Reprieve, representations were made to the
Vietnamese President by the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, the former
Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, MPs, the President of the European
Parliament, the Mayor of London and the Bishop of Westminster, among
others. A petition in support of Luong on the Downing Street website was
signed by over 1,400 people.
It is in large part due to these representations that the death sentence
of execution by firing squad was lifted in March 2008. He has now been
transferred to the general prison population to serve his life sentence,
where he is no longer shackled for 24 hours a day, and free from the threat
of execution. We are also hopeful that in the future, Luong may be able to
return to Britain to serve out the remainder of his sentence close to his family.
Chan King Yu
Chan King Yu, a British National Overseas from Hong Kong, who was
sentenced to death in Malaysia in 2002, had his sentence quashed by
Malaysia’s Federal Court on 14 November 2008. Prosecutors had alleged
that police found 9 kg of methamphetamines in a hotel room in Kuala
Lumpur where Chan was staying, but the three-judge panel ruled that
there was insufficient evidence against Chan. Chan’s appeal lawyer, Dato’
Mohammad Shafee Abdullah, asserted that the drugs were planted and
uncovered evidence that showed that the police had in fact entered the
hotel room where the drugs were found prior to Chan’s arrest when Chan
was not there.
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Death Penalty
UK Volunteers
The work of volunteers is critical to the success of Reprieve’s Death Penalty
Team; we would like to thank the following individuals for their hard work
and support: Hannah Crowther, Marcus Harry, Sophie O’Sullivan, Emma
Walker-McKevitt, Chris Nichols, Sam Bereket-Bulur, Johannes Rauwald,
Laura Maisey, Harriet McCulloch and Jai Popat.
US Volunteers
In 2008 Reprieve sent 15 volunteers to capital defence offices in Louisiana
and Texas. Volunteers carry out vital work in this notoriously underfunded
field, assisting with the representation of impoverished defendants facing
execution and on research and litigation directed towards systemic reform.
Here is one testimony from a Reprieve volunteer.
“My four months as a Reprieve volunteer were some of the most
fulfilling of my life. I came to understand how fighting the death penalty
involved so many other fundamental rights that we should be able to
take for granted; from the right to a fair trial, to the protection of
fundamental human dignity. Prisoners had been detained on the most
flimsy and circumstantial of evidence, suffered from woeful
misrepresentation of the facts or had confessions beaten out of them.
These would seem to be situations of despair, but I was inspired
by the people I worked with and their energy, intelligence and passion.
Their ability to work so hard in the face of such huge odds was
humbling. Equally remarkable were the prisoners themselves. I
remember being particularly struck by the gentle politeness of one
prisoner, as we met for the first time and talked about baseball, while
he faced the prospects of either a death penalty or life at the mercy of
his prison guards. I saw men, shackled and fearful, testify against
guards that controlled every aspect of their lives. Their courage, as they
knew, was unlikely to be rewarded but they spoke simply for the sake of
telling the truth. I met men that had been jailed for years for crimes they
did not commit who, despite all they had been subjected to, dedicated
themselves to helping others with kindness, dignity and hope. My
placement made me realise how each prisoner is an individual human
being, with a life worth fighting for, facing a system that dwarfs them.
Their battle is literally one of life and death and I still feel immensely
proud and honoured to have been given the chance to help them.”
– Reprieve US Volunteer, 2008
2008 US volunteers: Pete Gilmour, Natasha Hamilton, Jai Popat, Naomi
Snider, Venus Ruskin, Harriet McCulloch, Suzanne Treen, Hannah Ahmadi,
Jack Seaman, Lucy Blake, Ed Roche, Olivia Corbett, Ruth Eagle, James
Cross and Lucy Howard.
Death Penalty
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Death Penalty Defence Training
Reprieve ran two death penalty defence training courses together with the
charity Amicus. These sessions were attended by over 200 participants.
Reprieve Fellows
In the US – Kate Black and Patrick Mulvaney commenced their Fellowships
in March 2008. Kate is using her one-year Fellowship at Texas Defender
Service to challenge the use of experts in death penalty trials who claim
to be able to predict the “future dangerousness” of a defendant. Patrick
is undertaking his one-year Fellowship at the Southern Center for Human
Rights where he will be representing people on death row in Alabama who
otherwise would not have an attorney. Meanwhile Fellows Michael Moore,
Chrissy DeMaso and Frances Burliot continued their work in the field.
In December 2008 Lucy Larkins was awarded a one-year Fellowship
which she will begin in May 2009 at the Louisiana Capital Assistance
Center. Lucy will be working to improve the conditions of confinement
and provision of mental health services for seriously mentally ill capital
defendants in Louisiana and to reduce the damage done to capital
defendants by the improper use of competency proceedings.
In 2008, Reprieve awarded its first Fellowship in Pakistan. Funded by
Lush, Sultana Noon is utilizing her Reprieve Fellowship to assist on the
cases of British nationals facing the death penalty in Pakistan. She is also
investigating the network of illegal secret prisons, gathering evidence in
order to challenge such practices.
Images from a US death row.
Guantánamo Bay
Guantánamo Bay
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Fair Trial My Arse initiative
in Trafalgar Square.
2008 was a landmark year for the prisoners in
Guantánamo Bay. Seven Reprieve clients were
released from Guantánamo: three to Sudan
(Amir Yacoub, Mustafa Ibrahim and Sami al
Hajj), two to Algeria (Muhammed Al Qadir
and Abdul Rahim Houari), one to the de facto
independent region of Somaliland (Muhammad
Hussein Abdallah) and one to Morocco (Said Al
Boujaadia). Said remains in prison in Morocco,
but the other six prisoners have been reunited
with their families.
This year, Reprieve also became the first charity to reach prisoners seized
in the context of US operations in the Horn of Africa. Thanks to the
investigative work of our secret prisons research team, we acquired two
new clients—a Kenyan and a Somali—both picked up in the Horn, both
taken to Guantánamo in 2007. The accounts they have given to Reprieve’s
lawyers will go a long way towards shedding light on, and stopping, the
misguided policies that have destabilized that region since 2006.
Against the background of all this work arrived the Summer’s massive
victory in the legal battle over Guantánamo. In Boumediene v. Bush, the US
Supreme Court ruled in favour of restoring habeas rights to all prisoners.
This meant that Reprieve’s 32 habeas cases moved forwards at once,
absorbing a great deal of our lawyers’ time and energy. We litigated two
habeas hearings in their entirety before the end of December, and moved
swiftly towards hearings in several others.
Our experience shows that pressing in the courts, at the same time as
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Guantánamo Bay
bringing political and media pressure to bear can precipitate a prisoner’s
release before a merits judgment is ever handed down. We made great
strides in this regard in Binyam Mohamed’s case in 2008, pressing in
habeas for exculpatory information that the US government fought tooth
and nail against disclosing. As a result, Reprieve also became in 2008
the first—and, to date, the only—organization to win the right to question
a government interrogator under oath in the Guantánamo context:
specifically, the man who supervised the interrogations of Binyam
Mohamed in Bagram and Guantánamo Bay.
Naturally, another significant change for the Guantánamo prisoners
took place in November with the election of Barack Obama. His
administration’s policies continue to take shape, but the transitional
administration signalled before the year was out that the future of the
prison in Guantánamo Bay was limited.
Nonetheless, by the close of the year, some 30 Reprieve clients still
remained behind bars, including Chadian national Mohammed El Gharani,
who was a child of 14 when sent to Cuba some seven years earlier.
Others are refugees; a significant amount of our work involved
pressing European and friendly Middle Eastern governments to offer
asylum to the 60 individuals who cannot be safely sent home. Those
efforts paid off late in 2008, when first Portugal, and then other European
nations, began indicating their willingness to accept refugees in a new
administration. (Reprieve had pressed Portugal on its “war on terror”
policies for months, publicizing their collusion in the US renditions scheme
to much local outrage.) Reprieve also met officials in Ireland, Italy, the UK,
Belgium, and France to discuss these matters. Some of these countries
are now leading the resettlement charge.
Some highlights during the year include:
• Reprieve held an action meeting in Yemen in January 2008 to
pressure the Yemeni government to secure the release of its 94
nationals, who now constitute by far the largest single-nationality
group left at Guantánamo.
•
In a serendipitous twist, this meeting also led us to the family of one
our Somali clients, Muhammad Hussein Abdallah. This won us the
right to visit him, as a result of which we organized his release within
just nine months. Muhammad was a UNHCR mandate refugee and a
father of eleven, picked up while teaching orphans at a refugee camp
outside Peshawar. He now resides with his family in Somaliland, a
stable, independent region of Somalia.
•
Reprieve made significant strides in the European context, publishing
a report on prisoners with claims to Italian residency and negotiating
with various other European governments in cooperation with our
friends at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, Amnesty
International, and other groups. These efforts laid the groundwork for
the recent positive developments in Europe towards accepting
Guantánamo’s prisoners in need of humanitarian protection.
Guantánamo Bay
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•
Reprieve secured a D.C. Court of Appeals judgment in favour
of Ahmed Belbacha in Belbacha v. Bush (2008), in cooperation with
our partners at the law firm Covington and Burling. This case opened
the door of the US courts to Guantánamo prisoners’ claims that being
sent back to their country of origin would spell torture.
•
In summer of 2008, Reprieve brought a case against the UK
Government on behalf of Binyam Mohamed. Initially aimed at forcing
the UK Government to share evidence supporting Binyam’s claim that
he’d been tortured at the hands of the US Government, this ongoing
case has revealed the shocking extent of the UK’s complicity in
Binyam’s torture. Press interest in and coverage of this case has been
substantial. Allegations of criminal involvement in Mr. Mohamed’s case
have since been referred to the Director of Public Prosuections with
the Metropolitan Police. Parallel habeas litigation led to the first-ever
deposition of a US intelligence agent in a Guantánamo case.
•
In the early hours of May 1st, Reprieve client and Al Jazeera
journalist, Sami Al Haj, was finally released from Guantánamo Bay
and reunited with his wife and young son in Sudan. Noticeably weak
after over six years in US custody – and his 16-month hunger strike –
Sami nevertheless spoke up for his fellow prisoners from his hospital
bed in Khartoum.
•
In October, our client Mustafa Ibrahim Al Hassan, a 51-year-old father
of four who had spent the last 6 years in Guantánamo Bay, was
released and repatriated to Sudan. He had been arrested in Pakistan
in 2002 while studying Islam and looking for business opportunities.
He had been in Guantánamo since August 2002, but was never
charged with any crime and never received a trial.
Secret prisons and
extraordinary renditions
Secret prisons and extraordinary renditions
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Lush campaign for Sami al
Haaj, now ex Guantánamo
prisoner.
Our investigations into secret prisons around
the world – and the process of extraordinary
rendition used to transport prisoners from one
to the other – have yielded increasingly shocking
and serious evidence. This, paired with litigation
brought on behalf of prisoners in Guantánamo
and elsewhere, makes our work second to none
in terms of direct knowledge of individuals’
stories and experiences.
Throughout 2008, we have been building a Renditions Database, the
first phase of which was launched in late autumn. The database brings
together the huge amount of varying data we have gleaned about the
practice of rendition and the location and status of numerous secret US
prisons. It allows the user to run queries that harness the full impact of the
data and make connections not previously identified. In the future it is
intended that this database will be made available to external partners
in order that the information is used as widely as possible.
Some highlights over the year include:
• Reprieve published wide-ranging reports and submissions on British,
Scottish and Irish involvement in the US renditions programme,
highlighting the key role played by UK Overseas Territories. We also
exposed rendition operations in the Horn of Africa, and the
involvement of Kenyan authorities in rendering Africans.
•
Reprieve presented the case for prisoners in Guantánamo in
Congressional Hearings on May 20, 2008, and we have followed
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Secret prisons and extraordinary renditions
up with submissions to various active members of congress on
particular issues of concern (juveniles in Guantánamo; evidence
of torture etc.).
•
Reprieve has investigated East African involvement in rendition
including a group of disappearances from Tanzania to Afghanistan in
2003/4, a rendition operation involving over 100 people of 19 different
nationalities held in secret prisons in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia, and
detentions in the US military base at Camp Lemonier, Djibouti.
•
Reprieve assisted both the Council of Europe and the European
Parliament, in their separate inquiries into Member States’ involvement
in rendition.
•
Reprieve has worked with parliamentary and government committees
conducting enquiries into rendition, including the Foreign Affairs
Committee, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Extraordinary
Rendition; the UK Intelligence and Security Committee and the
Scottish Inquiry into Renditions.
•
With the ACLU and NYU Centre for Global Justice, Reprieve brought
a case in the US against a private contractor called Jeppesen
Dataplan, that provided the “flight planning” services for the renditions
of at least three of our clients. As the case was dismissed in California,
it will be brought again in the UK.
•
Reprieve is working with a team of lawyers in the UK in bringing a
case against the UK security services for complicity in the rendition
and torture of three of our clients to Afghanistan and Guantánamo
Bay. This case is important because it aims to establish a positive duty
for foreign security services to protect human rights and fundamental
freedoms when participating in “intelligence gathering operations” in
secret prisons abroad, whatever the nationality of the prisoners involved.
•
Reprieve has identified a prisoner who has been held in Diego Garcia,
and located his wife in Qatar, so that we can bring litigation on his
behalf in the US and, potentially, in the UK as well.
Public Education
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Public Education
Opening of Vivienne
Westwood’s London
Fashion Week show.
Through the Public Education Programme,
Reprieve engages in media work and outreach,
focusing on the death penalty and Guantánamo
Bay. Clive Stafford Smith and Reprieve staff
members talked about Reprieve’s work at
numerous events during the year.
Further, 2008 saw an array of events designed
to raise awareness of the issues that Reprieve
addresses and garner support:
Fair Trial My Arse
In February 2008, Reprieve launched the ‘Fair Trial my Arse’ initiative
in association with ‘Agent Provocateur’ and then, in April, with ‘Lush’
cosmetics. Both initiatives sought to educate the public about the lack
of access to justice for prisoners in Guantánamo. In particular, the initiative
highlighted the plight of British resident Binyam Mohamed, as well as our
now released client, Al-Jazeera journalist, Sami Al Haj. The ‘Fair Trial My
Arse’ Agent Provocateur underwear and Reprieve placards opened
Vivienne Westwood’s London Fashion Week show – attracting newspaper
coverage around the world. The initiative took place in over 80 Lush stores
across Britain, from which leaflets were given out and products sold to
raise money and awareness.
Public Education
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Kenny Richey Reception
In March 2008, Reprieve organised a reception and discussion with Clive
Stafford Smith to mark the release of Kenny Richey. Kenny returned to
Scotland in January 2008 after spending 21 years on Death Row for a
crime he did not commit. The event was sponsored and hosted by Lovells.
The Abolition of the Death Penalty – Reprieve and Deathwatch
International Conference
On 21 April Reprieve and Death Watch international met to discuss
the abolition of the Death Penalty at an event hosted by Clifford Chance.
A panel of speakers – including Billy Moore who spent 17 years on death
row in Georgia, USA and Clive Stafford Smith – discussed different aspects
and challenges within the movement to end the death penalty.
Extraordinary Rendition Film Screening
Reprieve was invited to speak at a special screening of Jim Threapleton’s
film Extraordinary Rendition. The screening was held in Parliament and
introduced by Clive Stafford Smith.
Extraordinary Rendition
Lightshow, part of the
Meltdown Festival.
Torture Team
In May 2008 Reprieve participated in Torture Team, an enquiry into the
interrogation techniques used by the American administration and military
in Guantánamo and beyond. Devised by Nicolas Kent, Vanessa Redgrave
and Philippe Sands, the play was produced by the Tricycle to coincide with
the publication of Philippe Sands’ book Torture Team. All proceeds from
the evening went to Reprieve and Medical Foundation for the Care of
Victims of Torture.
Readers included: Paul Bhattacharjee, Michael Cochrane, Ron Cook,
Sally Giles, Bill Hoyland, Alex Jennings, Joanna Lumley, Corin Redgrave,
Vanessa Redgrave and Philippe Sands QC.
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Public Education
Taxi to the Dark Side Screenings
Oscar winning film director Alex Gibney kindly offered Reprieve the
opportunity to hold screenings of his latest documentary Taxi to the Dark
Side. The film covers the US administration’s post-9/11 flight from the law
by focusing on the murder by US forces of Dilawar, an innocent Afghan
taxi driver, in the US prison at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan.
Screenings, followed by discussions with Reprieve representatives
were held at a variety of venues including the ICA, Galway Film Festival,
Portobello Film Festival, the Southbank Centre and the Tricycle Theatre.
Taxi to the Dark Side cover.
Rendition Monologues
In June 2008 Reprieve and Iceandfire Theatre Company staged
a production of the Rendition Monologues in the Bridewell Theatre,
London. Rendition Monologues weaves together the first-hand
testimonies of victims of extraordinary rendition; the kidnapping
and illegal transfer of terrorism suspects and others considered to
be implicated in the ‘War on Terror’ to be interrogated in nation states
with a reputation for torture. The performance was followed by a panel
discussion with Clara Gutteridge, who is one of two Reprieve
investigators working on a wide-ranging project to uncover the scope
of the global rendition and secret detention system, with a particular
focus on European state collusion.
Meltdown
From 13-24 June, Reprieve enjoyed the opportunities provided by
a unique collaboration – as the charity partner of Massive Attack, curators
of the Meltdown 2008 Festival at London’s Southbank Centre.
On the opening night, Friday 13 June, Massive Attack and the
Southbank Centre invited us to attend the official opening of Meltdown.
As the light began to dim, the whole east wall of the Royal Festival Hall lit
up with an extraordinary map tracing the routes and destinations involved
in the “extraordinary rendition” of prisoners seized by the United States in
its “War on Terror”.
The installation, which included text prepared by Reprieve, was
produced by UVA (United Visual Artists), Massive Attack’s designers.
The installation was in place throughout the whole of Meltdown, as were
artworks on the pillars inside the Royal Festival Hall, designed by Stanley
Donwood (best known for his work with Radiohead), who produced
wallpaper decorated with the registration numbers of planes used by
the CIA in its “extraordinary rendition” programme.
Throughout the week, Reprieve’s staff and volunteers informed those
turning up for gigs about Reprieve’s work, handing out thousands of
leaflets, and signing up new supporters.
The other highlights of the week, from Reprieve, were Clive Stafford
Smith’s introduction of Massive Attack’s show on Saturday 14 June
(they projected a light display demonstrating rendition flights during
their concert and the words of Binyam Mohamed’s “torture diary” rolled
across the backdrop to the stage), and three excellent events in the
Purcell Room.
Public Education
Page 25
On Saturday 14 June, there was a screening of Fourteen Days in
May, the award-winning documentary by Paul Hamann, Reprieve’s former
Chairman, which follows the last days in the life of death row prisoner
Edward Earl Johnson. After the screening, Paul Hamann, Clive Stafford
Smith, and Nick Yarris, who spent 21 years on death row for a crime he
did not commit, engaged the audience about the ongoing iniquities of
death row and the death penalty.
On Sunday 15 June, there was a special screening of the Academy
Award-winning documentary Taxi to the Dark Side, which covers the US
administration’s post-9/11 flight from the law by focusing on the murder
by US forces of Dilawar, an innocent Afghan taxi driver, in the US prison
at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan. Following the screening, Clive Stafford
Smith and former Guantánamo prisoner Moazzam Begg took questions
from a lively audience.
The final event, on Sunday 21 June, was a performance of Rendition
Monologues, a hard-hitting new play by theatre company Iceandfire, which
is based on the testimony of prisoners who have been subjected to the
horrors of rendition, illegal imprisonment and torture. The performance
was followed by a discussion with Zachary Katznelson and Chloe Davies
of Reprieve, who discussed Reprieve’s ongoing research into renditions
and secret prisons, and former Guantánamo prisoner Bisher al-Rawi.
Cruel and Unusual
In November 2008 Reprieve put on a production of Cruel and Unusual,
Keith Farnan’s brilliant one-man comedy show about the death penalty.
The show gave Reprieve an invaluable opportunity to raise awareness
about the continuing work we do for people facing the death penalty
and other human rights violations around the world.
Photofit and Zero dB
In addition to planned events, the events team have been involved in the
production of two viral films which raise awareness of the work we do at
Reprieve and the issues we’re involved with. They can be viewed at:
www.reprieve.org.uk
Reprieve’s Supporters
While it is not possible to list everyone individually, Reprieve would
like to thank all its partners and supporters, both on behalf of the
organisation, and on behalf of the prisoners who have benefited
from our work.
Reprieve’s Supporters
25 Bedford Row
A B Charitable Trust
Addleshaw Goddard
Charitable Trust
Agent Provocateur
Aisha Maniar
Al-Amin Kimathi
Alan Bennett
Alan Shaw
Alex Gibney
Alexandra Zernova
Alia Khrais
Alistair Carmichael MP
Allen & Overy LLP
Amicus
Amjad Hussain
Amnesty International
Andrea Dahlberg
Andrew Tyrie MP
Anonymous
Anonymous Grant
Antigone
APPG Renditions
Appletree Fund
Arab Penal Reform
Organization
Ashraf Michael
Asim Qureshi
Association de Droits
de l’Homme
Atlantic Philanthropies
Baroness Sarah Ludford
Bates Wells & Braithwaite
Ben Jaffey
Bill Bailey
Bindman and Partners
Blackstone Chambers
BPP
Brent Mickum
Bromley Trust
Cageprisoners
CAIO
Cathy Jones
Centre for Constitutional
Rights
Charities Aid Foundation
Charles Wickham-Jones
Charter Chambers
Claire Everest
Clarissa O’Callaghan
CNLT
Covington and Burling
Dan Leader
David Nicholl
David Remes
David Sellwood
Page 27
Dinah Rose QC
Doughty Street Chambers
Dr Luqman Khan
Ed Davey MP
Ed Fitzgerald QC
Elfatih Farah
Ennasir
Eranda Foundation
Esmee Fairbairn Foundation
Fair Trials International
Felice Bezri
Florence Brocklesby
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
Fuserna Foundation
Gail Farahani
Garden Court Chambers
Gareth Peirce
Garfield Weston Foundation
Gavin Simpson
Geoff Nicholas
Geoffrey Bindman
George Blom-Cooper
George Pitcher
Gillian Slovo
Google Uk Ltd
Gordon Roddick
Hala Aly
Hamoud Ould Nebagha
Hands Off Cain
Harriet Laurie
Haytham Manna
Helen Bamber Foundation
Herbert Smith LLP
Hisham Bustani
HOOD
Hugh Southey
Human Rights Watch
Human Writes
Humanade
I Am an Activist
Ibrahim JM Khalifa
Impact Fund
Jamie Beageant
Jane Gibson Charitable Trust
JEHT Foundation
Jenny Willott MP
Jill Davies
Joe Hingston
John Gummer MP
Jon Snow
Joseph Rowntree
Charitable Trust
Julie Christie
Kate Green
Kevin Eldon
KeyMed
Kim Hollis QC
Kim Watts
Leigh Day & Co Solicitors
Lifelines
Linklaters
Lloyd Fund
London Guantánamo
Campaign
Lord Bingham of Cornhill
Lovells LLP
Lt. Col. Yvonne Bradley
Lubna Karim
Lush
Mahmoud Khatib
Maisara Malass
Marina Warner
Mark and Mo Constantine
Mark Steel
Mark Thomas
Mark Warren
Martha Lane Fox
Marwan Shehadeh
Massive Attack
Matrix Chambers
Max Clifford Associates
Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw Llp
Medical Foundation for the
Care of Victims of Tort
Melanie Carr
Mette Klarskov Larsen
Mike and Claire Phillips
Musicians Union
Nechat Abdelkader
Nick Harrington
Nick Yarris
Nicolas Kent
NYU Centre for Global Justice
Oak Philanthropy Limited
Orion Books
Paul Lomas
Paul Yates
Peter Bottomley MP
Philip Pullman
Phillipe Sands QC
Polly Pope
Prisoners Abroad
Raul Sanchez Inglis
Rebecca King
Reprieve Australia
Reprieve Netherlands
Reprieve USA
Richard Bourke
Richard Brophy
Richard Hermer
Richard Stein
Robin Ince
S.C. & M.E. Morland’s
Charitable Trust
Sam Roddick
Sapna Malik
Sarah Teather MP
Save Omar
Sean O’Brien
Shappi Khorsandi
Sigrid Rausing Trust
Simon Munnery
Simons Muirhead and Burton
Sir John Mortimer
Sophie Johnson
Southbank Centre
Stephen Solley QC
Stewart Lee
Sue Carpenter
Sylvia Coleman
The Bryan Guinness
Charitable Trust
The Death Penalty Project
The Dewan Foundation Ltd
The Eranda Foundation
The Ford Foundation
The Frocester Trust
The Law Society Charity
The TL Trust
This is Real Art
Timothy Otty QC
Tinsley Charitable Trust
Tolkien Trust
Tom Dunn
Tooks Chambers
Tricycle Theatre
Two Garden Court Chambers
Vera Baird MP
Victoria Brittain
Vivienne Westwood
Webster Dixon LLP
Westcliff High School for Boys
White & Case
Will Francome
Yasmin Waljee
Younus Saleem
Reprieve would also like to extend a special thank you to our regular donors, whose continued
support enables Reprieve to predict its income and plan effectively.
Financial Information
Page 28
Statement of Financial Activities
(Incorporating income and expenditure account)
for the year ended 31 december 2008
Incoming Resources
Incoming resources from generated funds:
– Voluntary income
– Activities for generating funds
– Investment income
Incoming resources from charitable activities:
– Promotion of Human Rights
Other incoming resources:
Total Incoming Resources
2008
Restricted
Funds
£
2008
Unrestricted
Funds
£
2008
Total
Funds
£
2007
Total
Funds
£
81,170
-
-
380,163
6,431
8,129
461,333
6,431
8,129
399,660
5,456
5,299
474,379
-
242,195
100,000
716,574
100,000
633,388
60,000
555,549
736,918
1,292,467
1,103,803
Resources expended
Costs of generating funds:
– Costs of generating voluntary income
Charitable activities:
– Promotion of Human Rights
Governance costs:
63,548
39,331
102,879
54,973
552,216
11,541
298,388
22,603
850,604
34,144
897,163
25,258
Total Resources Expended
627,305
360,322
987,627
977,394
Net Income / (Expenditure) Before Transfers
Transfers between Funds
(71,756)
7,000
376,596
(7,000)
304,840
-
126,409
Net Movement in Funds for the Year
(64,756)
369,596
304,840
126,409
Total funds at 1 January 2008
211,890
226,283
438,173
311,764
Total Funds At 31 December 2008
147,134
595,879
743,013
438,173
Financial Information
Page 29
Balance Sheet
As at 31 december 2008
2008
£
Fixed Assets
Tangible fixed assets
2008
£
2007
£
2007
£
19,936
25,765
Current Assets
Debtors
Cash at bank
51,047
792,746
12,081
430,716
Totals
843,793
442,797
Creditors:
amounts falling due within one year
(120,716)
(30,389)
Net Current Assets:
723,077
412,408
Total Assets Less Current Liabilities:
743,013
438,173
Charity Funds:
– Restricted funds
– Unrestricted funds
147,134
595,879
211,890
226,283
743,013
438,173
Page 30
Reprieve would also like to offer special
thanks to Freshfileds Bruckhaus Deringer
for their support, both of this annual report
and in general throughout the year.
Special Thanks
Page 31
Page 32
Reprieve
P.O. Box 52742, London, EC4P 4WS
T: +44 (0)20 7353 4640
F: +44 (0)20 7353 4641
www.reprieve.org.uk
[email protected]

Annual Report 2008

Transcription

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