Archive

‘SOMETHING AWKWARD’: WHEN CONSERVATIVE MINISTERS AUTHORISED TORTURE The Supreme Court has ruled that Northern Irish police acted illegally in failing to properly investigate the case of the so-called ‘Hooded Men’. Police torture at a British army barracks was “deliberate policy”. A 1977 letter found...

The Pat Finucane Centre (PFC, Derry/Armagh/Belfast, Northern Ireland) in conjunction with Justice for the Forgotten (JFF, Dublin) wishes to make the following Rule 9 submission to the Committee of Ministers on its supervision of the following cases relating to security force actions in Northern...

Background to the Supreme Court case along with links to the hearings.

The Committee of Ministers meet this week (12th - 14th March 2019) to examine the implementation of judgements & decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. In advance of this meeting, PFC provided a written submission to the Committee outlining our concerns regarding the ongoing failure of the...

26th June marks the International Day in Support of the Victims of Torture. The PFC, along with our colleagues in CAJ, Amnesty International and Matrix Chambers marked the day by outlining evidence of torture carried out by the RUC and British Army during the 1970's in the north of Ireland at an...

When the European Court ruled that detainees in Northern Ireland were NOT tortured but only subjected to "inhuman and degrading" treatment, it gave the green light to other regimes worldwide. New evidence shows the court's ruling was based on false evidence - yet people are still being tortured...

The high court recently ruled that the PSNI legacy investigation branch was not sufficiently independent to be Art. 2 compliant in respect of killings by the British Army. This has profound implications for those families awaiting a proper investigation- and in our view strengthens the argument for...

Below is the PFC's recent submission to the Committee of Ministers concerning the McKerr group of cases. We have also attached the statement by the Irish Government to the CoM and their response issued today. Copies of other useful documents can be found on the Council of Europe website and the...

Request for new inquest into the deaths of Sean Dalton in Derry on 1988 refused by the High Court.

Documents submitted to British and Irish governments: A proposed model for Information Redaction under the Stormont House Agreement. Released to the public domain at a seminar at QUB on 4th April 2017.

Anne Cadwallader tells the story of the Hooded Men, internees subjected to fine-tuned methods of torture, that left little physical evidence, in various imperial theatres of war – from Malaya to Kenya – imported by Britain to Ireland in 1971

Perpetrators of Troubles' crimes must face justice, James Brokenshire warns.

August 1973-2016. Collusion issues to be raised in court in the coming weeks. UDR weapon used in motorway ambush.

British Prime Minister Theresa May warned the recent Tory party conference about what she called: "… activist, left-wing human rights lawyers [who] harangue and harass the bravest of the brave – the men and women of Britain’s Armed Forces". She also vowed to defend soldiers against "vexatious...

In the aftermath of the Brexit referendum, recent months have seen an increasingly chauvinistic tone in British politics. One aspect of this has been a concerted campaign against investigations of abuse by the Armed Forces. Conservative MPs have pressed Theresa May to curtail the activities of the...