REPRIEVE uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantánamo Bay. Working on the frontline, they provide legal support to prisoners unable to pay for it themselves. They promote the rule of law around the world, and secure each person’s right to a fair trial. REPRIEVE’s lawyers are currently representing over 30 prisoners in Guantánamo Bay. They also assist British nationals facing the death penalty around the world, and are conducting investigations into ‘extraordinary renditions’ and secret prisons in the so-called ‘War on Terror.’ For more information regarding REPRIEVE please visit: www.reprieve.org.uk

Humanade is funding REPRIEVE’s ‘Next Friend’ Investigator to work to reunite ‘Ghost Prisoners’ being held in US Sponsored Secret Prisons around the world with the rule of law.

When a prisoner is held by the US, or one of its proxy states, a habeas corpus challenge to the prisoner’s illegal detention can only be brought with permission from the prisoner or someone close to him. Since the prisoner is held incommunicado, this means inevitably that the person giving authorisation must be a family member or other ‘next friend’ (the legal term). None of the prisoners in Guantánamo Bay could secure legal representation were it not for the ‘next friend authorisations’ that have been secured from their family members all around the world.

With Humanade’s support, REPRIEVE has been able to gain authorisations from family members and to build ground-breaking cases – in jurisdictions around the world – that directly challenge the US-led policies of torture and disappearance.

Thanks to Humanade, REPRIEVE represents five new prisoners tortured in CIA prisons and the Next Friend investigator has directly assisted well over 100 people held in secret US prisons in the Horn of Africa, North Africa and Pakistan.  With the assistance of Humanade, Reprieve is building strong and strategically key cases that directly challenge the US practise of “disappearance”, and is able to engage in cutting-edge, cross-jurisdictional litigation with partners across three continents – in Europe, the US and Africa.

The 280 prisoners in Guantánamo Bay are only a small minority of the total number of prisoners held out of reach of the rule of law in the name of the US “War on Terror.” We believe there are at least 17,000 “ghost prisoners” in US custody, so the Guantánamo prisoners comprise a small minority of the total.  The other unfortunate ghost prisoners are in secret prisons scattered from Asia to Africa and the Middle East.  None has been allowed access to lawyers or courts.  This is the focus of the REPRIEVE ‘Next Friend’ Investigator position, funded by Humanade.