Take Action 
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Many people who visit our website, read our publications, or attend our events want to take further action. If you want to help ensure that the UK Government fully accounts for its involvement in torture during the 'War on Terror', and that it never again condones torture, in any circumstances, here are some suggestions for what you can do next:
- Write to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Extraordinary Rendition, and your MP
- Support NGOs working on torture
- Share prisoner stories
Write a letter of support to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Extraordinary Rendition
Send a letter to the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Extraordinary Rendition - effectively a cross-party pressure group - to solicit their support for a judge-led inquiry into UK involvement in torture and an overhaul of the UK’s torture guidance notes.
Here we provide a template letter which sets out three key actions Professor Blakeley and Dr Sam Rapahel recommend politicians and government take to address the urgent concerns they have identified.
The letter is addressed to Lord Andrew Tyrie and Ken Clark MP, co-chairs of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Extraordinary Rendition. The APPG was set up by Lord Tyrie in 2005 in response to allegations that the UK had been involved in the US rendition programme. The APPG is run by Members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords. It is an informal, cross-party group and is supported by contributions from trusts, foundations, non-governmental organisations and private individuals. It does not receive money from government. The APPG campaigns to establish the truth about the scope and scale of UK involvement in extraordinary rendition, and to reduce the likelihood that the UK will take part in extraordinary rendition in the future.
Once you’ve sent the letter to the APPG, you might want to send it to your MP too.
You can also download this fact sheet 'Rendition in Numbers' and this profile of Abdel Hakim Belhaj and Fatima Bouchar whose rendition was planned by the UK's MI6, and send these to your MP.
Support NGOs representing victims of rendition and torture
The following NGOs welcome your involvment, whether through supporting their campaigns, volunteering, or making financial donations.
Reprieve provides free legal and investigative support to some of the world’s most vulnerable people: those facing execution, and those victimised by states’ abusive counter-terror policies – rendition, torture, extrajudicial imprisonment and extrajudicial killing. They fight their clients’ cases in courts around the world, and also work with the media to advocate on their behalf, encouraging public debate of human rights issues. They hold the US and their European allies accountable to the highest standards in their responses to extreme crime, and they use strategic litigation to effect systemic change. They are currently representing 7 men detained in Guantánamo Bay. They also represent people who have been detained in US-run secret prisons, where alleged terrorists were tortured and detained without trial beyond the rule of law.
REDRESS works with torture victims to obtain justice and reparation. They aim to combat impunity for governments and individuals who perpetrate torture, and to develop and promote compliance with international standards.They apply their expertise on torture, reparations, and the rights of victims, to conduct research and advocacy to identify the necessary changes in law, policy, and practice. They bring legal cases on behalf of individual survivors, and advocate for better laws to provide effective reparations. Their cases respond to torture as an individual crime in national and international law, as a civil wrong with individual responsibility, and as a human rights violation with state responsibility.
Freedom from Torture provides specialist psychological therapy to help asylum seekers and refugees who have survived torture recover and rebuild their lives in the UK. They provide training for professionals working with torture survivors. With survivors, they campaign for change in the UK and across the world. They also aim to raise awareness and influence decision-makers about torture and its impact. Freedom from Torture's evidence of torture comes from medico-legal reports. These are highly detailed, forensic descriptions of the physical and psychological injuries a person has suffered. They are completed by Freedom from Torture's doctors, clinical staff and lawyers to international human rights standards. Medico-legal reports act as evidence of torture to support a person’s claim for asylum in the UK. This evidence helps us demonstrate that countries have tortured or may still be torturing their citizens.
Share the stories of rendition and torture victims using these informative resources
Prisoners' Memoirs
Mohamedou Ould Slahi's Guantánamo Diary is the first and only memoir by a still-inprisoned Guantánamo detainee. It was published in January 2015 from a 466-page handwritten manuscript, with numerous redactions, as a result of censoring by US authorities.
Human Rights Watch interviews with Ridha al-Najjar and Lotfi al-Arabi El Gherissi, who are among the 119 prisoners held in secret CIA prisons. In these short film interviews they describe the torture they suffered.
Documentaries
Mohamedou Ould Slahi's Guantánamo Diary Video
Torturing Democracy is a major documentary that tells the story of how the US government adopted torture as official policy in the aftermath of 9/11.
The Dark Prison, produced by Al Jazeera's Faultlines programme contains interviews with a number of prisoners who were held in the notorious CIA secret prison, referred to by detainees as the Dark Prison because of the extremes of torture they were subjected to.
Thank you for your support on these important human rights and accountability issues.
