Voices from the Oxford Human Rights Festival: Little Amal visits

Photo: Cathrine Brun

Oxford Human Rights Planning Committee member and CENDEP postgraduate student Victoria Greenwood shares her reflections on the UK Nationality and Borders Bill and Little Amal’s visit to the ‘dreaming spires’ of Oxford.

Elizabeth Laskar, Festival Coordinator writes:

The reflection below has been written by MA student Victoria Greenwood after the visit of a giant puppet called ‘Amal’, who visited Oxford on Tuesday 26 October 2021. The historic city was packed with people from all generations and backgrounds, all following Amal from street to street - everyone wanted a glimpse of her. The spectacle was more than just a puppet show: it was powerful in that her presence and movements embodied not only her story but the story of all displaced children and the inequalities within the city of Oxford and the institutions it holds. It was moving and deeply thought provoking.

As we plan to celebrate our 20th festival in 2022 it’s a timely piece to help ‘kick off’ the discourse on the festival theme of ‘movement’ and human rights. 

Disruption: the 19th Oxford Human Rights Festival

 

For further details and to book to attend any of these events, please click here.

I wish I had been wrong: the performance of Hungary’s illiberal regime during the epidemic’s second wave

András Kádár is co-chair of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee and a partner of CENDEP in its human rights research in recent years. Last year he contributed an article to the special feature of the Journal of Human Rights Practice on COVID-19 and human rights. Unfortunately, the long production schedules of academic publishing don't fit well with fast-moving events, so we invited András to bring his analysis of the pandemic response in Hungary up to date.

* * *

In my opinion piece “In its Nature — How Stealth Authoritarianism Keeps Stealing Along During the Pandemic, and How Can it be Stopped?” written for the Journal of Human Rights Practice, I argued that illiberal regimes during large-scale crises including the COVID epidemic were like the fable’s scorpion that stings the frog carrying it through the river although that means death for both of them. Their illiberal nature determines their often self-destructive ways of dealing with crises. At times that call for unity, they opt for polarization. Instead of transparency, they monopolise information and restrict the freedom of expression. They use the crisis to further weaken checks and balances instead of reinforcing public trust by strengthening the executive’s oversight. 

These traits can have tragic consequences. Effectively combating such a health care crisis requires cooperation and trust from society. Any democratic government can only expect this if it explains and is ready to discuss its strategy openly. The Hungarian example shows that this kind of openness is simply not in the nature of illiberal regimes, and the most recent developments highlight this deficiency’s potentially fatal consequences. 

Oxford Human Rights Festival events this week

The 19th annual Oxford Human Rights festival is upon us, with the theme of Disruption. The main festival will be next March, but please check out these three important and interesting events happening this week.

Quiz & Discussion 
Tuesday 8 DEC 2020
5pm - 6.30pm 
Orange The World -  Elimination of Violence against Women

As part of the UN Women International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women 2020, Basma El Doukhi will lead an interactive session to challenge assumptions and raise awareness around the facts of gender based violence.Click here for more info and booking >>

ONLINE SCREENING + Q&A 
Thursday 10 DEC 2020
7PM - 10PM
​'FOR SAMA' & Q&A 
​with Afraa Hashem

FOR SAMA is the winner of many awards including the BAFTA for Best Documentary 2020. Q&A with Afraa Hashem. 18 cert. In collaboration with Oxford Brookes Documentary Club and OxHRF.  Click here for more info and booking>>

ONLINE DISCUSSION
Friday 11 DEC 2020
5.30PM - 6.30PM (UK)
'Can the UK lead on climate change?
The CEE Bill and our future'

Join the CEE Bill Alliance Oxfordshire as we celebrate our climate change achievements locally and in the UK and discuss how we can continue to have strong climate leadership into the future. In collaboration with CEE Bill Alliance Oxfordshire. Click here for more info and booking>>

Human rights practice in the age of pandemic

This image is from an important report from Frontline Defenders on human rights defenders and COVID-19

Richard Carver writes:

The practice of human rights, like most other spheres of human activity, has been radically affected by the novel coronavirus pandemic. COVID-19 has had an enormous impact on the way that we go about our work, whether we are scholars or practitioners in the field. But equally we would like to believe that our practice is of some relevance to those affected by the virus—which is to say all of us. Without trying to claim that human rights have an answer for every human problem, or for every aspect of this current crisis, it is not too immodest to claim that we have something to offer.

As an academic journal we are not best placed to respond quickly to the demands of this rapidly developing situation. Indeed, like many other enterprises, our own work has been disrupted and delayed. However, in order to offer an initial response to the human rights challenges of COVID-19, we asked several practitioners and scholars from different corners of the world to reflect on these challenges. This is not, obviously, intended as a comprehensive inventory of the questions that need to be addressed—and aspects may already be outdated by the time this issue is published. It is, however, a first take. We hope that, in the coming months, other contributors will offer their own experience and research on human rights practice in the conditions of pandemic, including your responses to the articles in this special forum.

It should hardly be necessary to assert the continued relevance of human rights in the present context. As several of our contributors in this issue note, governmental responses to COVID-19 tend to be true to their underlying character and to expose ‘the existing fault lines in our society’ (Supriya Akerkar). As András Kádár puts it, the Hungarian right-wing populist government responds to the pandemic as it does because it is ‘in its nature’. China initially reacted with censorship and repression, while the United States employed xenophobia and magical thinking. The latter has been uniquely badly affected not only because of the malignancy and ineptitude of its leadership, but also because of the lack of an adequate social safety net, including universal health care. There appear to be few redemption stories where governments exceed expectations, although those with prior experience of epidemics and the need for testing and contact-tracing have performed better. These include countries, such as several in Africa, not routinely regarded as models of good governance. This tendency for a ‘natural’ catastrophe to highlight pre-existing social characteristics explains the popularity of plague literature—Camus, Defoe and others enjoy late sales booms—as well as generating opportunities for human rights practitioners. This is much of the emphasis of Alicia Ely Yamin’s piece: the pandemic both exposes existing inequities and sets a possible agenda to transcend them.

Yamin offers a broad-reaching and radical agenda, founded on the possibility that the present protracted crisis offers opportunities as well as threats. A question that arises, however, is about the capacity of the human rights movement to make its voice heard, never mind taking control of the moment. While human rights organizations and scholars have not been slow to offer analysis and interpretation of the social and political dimensions of the pandemic, there is no evidence that our voices are widely heard or that we are influencing policy where it matters. Eda Seyhan offers one route: narrow the focus of human rights work. Paul Gready offers a different one: working at a local level to influence policy at the grass roots.

Much public discussion in recent months has been about the extent to which restrictions on some rights might be necessary in order to protect others. As Gready discusses, human rights law offers a well calibrated approach for balancing conflicting interests and rights. The notion that freedom of movement, for example, might be limited in order to protect the right to health is not exotic or unusual to readers of this journal but is the bread and butter of many human rights practitioners (even though our experience may be with other combinations of rights). Of course, there may then be overreach, either deliberate because of the nature of the regime (Kádár) or because of innate tendencies, even of democratic governments (Seyhan). We may then disagree among ourselves about the policy implications. Seyhan argues that human rights organizations, at least in the global North, should be focused on the threat to civil and political rights. Other contributors, notably Gready and Yamin, emphasize the importance of human rights practitioners addressing health rights among other economic and social rights.

One of the challenges to human rights practitioners is understanding the nature of vulnerability in the pandemic. For example, we are used to reflexively labelling children as vulnerable—yet they are clearly less susceptible to the disease than adults. But this itself does not mean that they are no longer vulnerable, especially in situations where poverty is exacerbated by both the pandemic and the response to it. Other fault lines also become relevant in understanding the impact of the virus. Racial disparities in many countries appear to map directly onto susceptibility to infection and mortality. Gender is central: women are often victims of the pandemic, for example through an upsurge in domestic violence, even though they are apparently less susceptible to infection than men. Martha Fineman’s claim that vulnerability is a ‘universal, inevitable, enduring aspect of the human condition’ is useful here, reminding us that vulnerability is always contextual and that the concept may be a more flexible one than traditional understandings of equality. Supriya Akerkar argues the need for ‘radical equality’ in our approach to vulnerability of older people and those with disabilities. Lukas Muntingh looks at a uniquely vulnerable section of society that is seldom found on lists of those who should be protected against discrimination: people deprived of their liberty. The treatment of prisoners is often described as a test of the humaneness of a society, just as the response to a pandemic is seen as exposing society’s underlying values. The treatment of prisoners in a pandemic is thus a double test, in which African governments, according to Muntingh, have a mixed record. He points to the complexity of the problem; prisons are a hotbed of infection, yet released prisoners without adequate support will likely find themselves even more vulnerable.

If we are honest, we do not yet understand the implications of any of this. We do not know whether the pandemic has handed dangerous new powers that governments will abuse—or created a new sense of social solidarity that will allow fuller realization of health rights and better protection of the vulnerable. Or perhaps the outcome will be uneven, possibly returning to something resembling the pre-existing ‘normal’. But we will be living with the new normal for a while yet and the challenges for human rights practice are immense.

This is the introduction to a special feature in the Journal of Human Rights Practice ((c) Oxford University Press). All articles in the feature are free to read. Just click on the links.

How to stop torture

Mel Nowicki from the School of Social Sciences writes: 

As part of our School's new Centre for Environment and Society, myself and Tom Chambers are developing a research cluster on the theme of Space & Temporality. As a cluster we hope to draw in disciplinary positionalities from across the social sciences including Human Geography, Social/Cultural Anthropology, Sociology, International Relations and Politics as well as aligned fields such as architecture, history, art and theatre. The cluster will launch officially in the new year (look out for updates!), but we are happy to announce that we are running a short seminar series this semester by way of introduction. 

Our first seminar will take place next Thursday 22nd October at 2-3pm, with a talk by Dr Richard Carver entitled ''Stopping Torture: What Works?''. Richard researches and teaches human rights in the Centre for Development and Emergency Practice in the School of Architecture at Oxford Brookes University. He is also editor of the Journal of Human Rights Practice (Oxford). Richard’s research focuses on the institutional protection of human rights, in particular the rights of people deprived of liberty. Does Torture Prevention Work? (with Lisa Handley, Liverpool University Press, 2016) was a pioneering multi-country study of the effectiveness of the torture prevention methods advocated by international legal authorities and anti-torture campaigners. The research found that although many recommended preventive steps had a positive impact, some did not. It also found that the preventive measures most strongly embedded in international law were not necessarily those that worked best in reducing the risk of torture. 

Everyone is very welcome to attend - please find the Zoom link to the event here: https://brookes.zoom.us/j/85173583940?pwd=RVpnZDlRaEY1b1dCcDREWlZGMnRhUT09 

Meeting ID: 851 7358 3940 

Passcode: 1393453612

Voices from the 18th OXHRF: What is the role of tech in human rights?

El Laskar writes:

As part of the festival this year, committee member Geena Whiteman organised a Human Rights Lab challenge where participants were invited to place human rights at the forefront of technology, innovation and entrepreneurial thinking. With a focus on resilience and through the support of a series of workshops, participants would have had one week to formulate, plan and pitch their ideas to a group of distinguished judges. Sadly COVID-19 took centre stage and the programme had to be cancelled. 

Geena’s Hackathon idea highlighted that technology has an enormous role to play in human rights and the humanitarian sector. Tech For Good Global says “Tech is neither good, nor bad and definitely not neutral. Which is why we need to be intentional about the use of tech in tackling the world's pressing social and environmental challenges.” A movement popularised in the 90s, when hack weekends were organised to bring web developers and the third sector together to create solutions, we have seen a swell of interest in #techforgood over recent years.

A right to consume? Resilience and climate change as human rights issues

Displaced family from South Sudan unable to reclaim their plot: the right to property can "unlock poverty traps" (UN photo)

EL Laskar writes: This year we had an opportunity to share reflections from CENDEP alumni. The voices of our alumni are important to us, they were the founders of the Oxford Human Rights Festival and their voices are part of the ongoing legacy of the festival. Our alumni make a rich tapestry across the globe and we welcome the voices, experience and expertise. Josh Ayers (CENDEP 2014) shared his reflections and highlighted some of the gaps of Article 17 of the Declaration of Human Rights - ‘Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others and no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.’

The landmark Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) signed in Paris in 1948 began the work of codifying human dignity into a minimum set of rights that the majority of the world’s nations at the time could agree upon.  For decades, much of civil society has affirmed these by taking  “rights-based approaches” to works of justice and compassion, sustainable development and the alleviation of human suffering.  Faith-based actors have readily taken up this cause as well.  Our work at Food for the Hungry shares many of the hallmarks of a “rights-based approach," including a dogged commitment to the foundation of human rights - the dignity of the human person.  Based on this bedrock of human dignity, the preponderance of rights listed in the UDHR address issues of fairness, freedom, and equality, painting a picture of the ideal society that most today can agree on.  

So what does this mean for those of us engaged with issues of resilience and climate change?  Expressed as “rights” -  or moral or legal entitlements to possess something or act in a certain way - our rights-based approaches have a tendency to become individualistic, singularly and reflexively focused on the “I” and “you”.  I have a right to life, liberty, and the security of the human person (myself).[1]  I have a right to own property, therefore you cannot take it from me arbitrarily.[2]  De Soto’s influential work in The Mystery of Capital made the explicit link between ownership of property (and the legal recognition of that ownership) and the functioning of the capitalist economy.  It is the legal entitlement, or right, to own property that allows the owner of that property to do with it as he or she pleases.  It is indeed Article 17 of the UDHR – the right to own property – that unlocks poverty traps for many of today’s most vulnerable people.  

Exploring resilience through the 18th Oxford Human Rights Festival

El Laskar writes:

This year the 18th Oxford Human Rights Festival shared the voices and stories of resilient individuals from around the world who have been through, and are still going through, tremendous challenges on a daily basis.  

We explored cultures, encouraged debates and discussions and invited individuals to explore their own stories of resilience through music, film, art, spoken word and movement. The Lord Mayor of Oxford, Councillor Craig Simmons opened the festival on 13 March.

Human rights in the age of pandemic

The blog has been on a hiatus at a time when we were planning to offer extensive coverage of the Oxford Human Rights Festival, sadly cancelled. We are looking at ways of bringing at least some of the festival’s content online. Meanwhile, Richard Carver reflects on the continuing importance of human rights in a time of pandemic.

There is, you may have forgotten, another pandemic in the world today: the human immune-deficiency virus or HIV. If you have indeed forgotten, this is probably because of the success in managing the consequences of the virus, while still not having the medical means to prevent it. Back in the 1980s, things were much worse and HIV was widely regarded as a death sentence. Its effects were worst in the poorest region of the world, sub-Saharan Africa. One of the most seriously affected countries, Malawi, had a physician as head of state, Dr H. Kamuzu Banda. Yet all public discussion of the virus was prohibited, along with any research into HIV. At the same time, Banda insisted that all 2,000 employees at his Sanjika Palace had to be tested annually, while the national blood donor programme closed down because of a shortage of test kits.*

Arba Minch field trip - DEP students reflect 4

Arba Minch street scene

In our final post from the Arba Minch field trip, two more DEP students reflect on their experience, focusing on their visits to a police detention centre and prison:

James Machak Chany Liah writes:

This being my first time ever in the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, several questions with no immediate answers lingered in my mind, which of course kept me awake for the whole night of my flight from London to Addis Ababa. When the plane touched down at Bole international airport, even before proceeding to Arba Minch, my final destination, I was having an open mind and flexibility to accommodate all the new things my eyes came across. Beside the diverse natural resources and the hospitality of the Ethiopian people, what impressed me most was the nature in which police conduct themselves at the detention centres. I have seen a general improvement compared to other East African police. The Ethiopian police do not have machine guns, they are more professional, they receive us with a lot of professionalism. Despite general health problems such as lack of water and congestion inside the cells that were mentioned by the detainees to me. those are things to do with budgets which could be beyond the police control. The trip was very educative and interactive.

Think Human - a world without torture

Friday saw the launch of the Think Human festival, a two-week series of artistic and academic events run by the Faculty of Humanities and Social Science. CENDEP's Richard Carver, along with Sushila Dhall, a psychotherapist from Refugee Resource, will be speaking at a Think Human event on Monday 3 February: "Fighting Torture: creating a torture-free world." Click the link for (free) tickets, or just turn up at the door: Abercrombie AB115a, 13.30-14.30.

Arba Minch field trip - DEP students reflect 3

Dina Black writes:

On Day 1 of our project, we received a

Dean Dersolegn

briefing from Dean Dersolegn Yeneabat who told us about the Arba Minch University (AMU) Law School’s free legal aid services. Professors Richard Carver and Lisa Handley explained to us the research topic and interview techniques. We discussed various research methods. The goal of free legal aid services is to provide access to justice for vulnerable people; most of the clients are too poor to pay for legal assistance. More than half of the beneficiaries are women with children. The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRCO) encouraged and financed the University’s Law School to set up a free legal aid programme in 2011 as part of its community service. The providers include members of staff from AMU Law School, students and middle-level legal professionals.

Arba Minch field trip - DEP students reflect 2

In the second of our reflections from students on the Arba Minch field trip, Hauwa Suleiman writes about our hosts in the Law School:

The Law School at Arba Minch University in Ethiopia is unlike any I have ever seen. It is as awe-inspiring as the rest of the country. Diverse in culture yet united in their love for country, like the national language Amharic which brings almost 60 dialects of the region together. The multilingual staff is so knowledgeable and eager to learn more. Most of them speak at least three languages but are so humble in their willingness for partnerships that strengthen us all. So full of energy and open to new ideas, there is a certain buzz while being in their midst that makes you want to dare more to do more.

Arba Minch field trip - DEP students reflect 1

Over the next few days, students from the Development and Emergency Practice Masters programme will be blogging about their field trip to Arba Minch in Ethiopia, where they worked on a capacity assessment of Arba Minch University's legal aid programme. First, Lindsay Slark writes about Arba Minch itself:

Arba Minch in the national language Amharic means forty springs. There are in fact more than forty springs but this represents only one reason to visit the region. Arba Minch has two lakes, Abaya and Chamo, separated by a land bridge called the Bridge of God. These lakes are stunningly beautiful and teeming with life, both wild and tame. The fishermen make their living on the lake, despite the dangers of the wild animals who also seek a meal. Here the crocodiles go to market, the hippos bathe with their young and the birds snatch fish from the fisherman.

DEP field trip to Arba Minch, Ethiopia

Richard Carver writes:

I am writing this in Arba Minch in southern Ethiopia. A group of students from the Development and Emergency Practice Masters programme arrived yesterday at the start of a field trip. This is the latest, and biggest development, in the partnership between Oxford Brookes University and Arba Minch University.

First some history: the Law School at Arba Minch approached CENDEP in 2017 for support and advice in developing two human rights Masters programmes – an LLM in human rights law and an MA in human rights and security. We provided them with teaching materials and readings. When the programmes launched, I was invited to come and teach a module (on human rights and vulnerability) to students from both programmes. This is now my third visit to Arba Minch and I have been spending the last few days teaching the Ethiopian Masters students.

Ten years of the Journal of Human Rights Practice

Richard Carver writes:

A happy and peaceful New Year to all the readers of this blog. We will be back in January with news of CENDEP’s new partnership with Arba Minch University in Ethiopia, as well as the build-up to the 18^th annual Oxford Human Rights Festival in March.

Meanwhile, while it is still (just) 2019, I wanted to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Journal of Human Rights Practice (OUP), a publication that has been closely associated with CENDEP since its launch.

The idea for a human rights journal that would focus not on law but on the activities that make rights a reality came from the founding editors, Brian Phillips and Paul Gready. Brian was the course leader for the Development and Emergency Practice Masters, founder of the Oxford Human Rights Festival, and my predecessor teaching human rights here. Paul, who directs the Centre for Applied Human Rights at the University of York, was the DEP external examiner at the time. I joined the editorial board in 2016 and became an editor two years ago, joining Paul and Ron Dudai, from Hebrew University in Jerusalem.  Brian continues his close association with the journal as reviews editor.

We recently published a tenth anniversary issue containing a series of reflections on the practice of human rights over the past decade. The issue is free online and it might be worth looking at, alongside the inevitable end-of-year and end-of-decade reviews that have been the lazy stock in trade of the newspapers over the past few weeks.

Human Rights Day 2018: how to stop torture

Today is Human Rights Day, which this year marks the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. One of the core human rights is the right not to be subjected to torture or other ill-treatment. To mark this day, we are publishing this cartoon strip by Shazeera Zawawi for the Association for the Prevention of Torture. 

Follow this link to read research by Budi Hernawan, Chris Sidoti, and Ricardo Sunga III on torture prevention in Indonesia and Philippines, originally published as part of a research project directed by CENDEP's Richard Carver and Lisa Handley (now available in Bahasa and Tagalog, as well as the original English).

"Reciprocity is a human principle": Barbara Harrell-Bond as mentor and friend

Barbara Harrell-Bond and Fatima Hashmi

Fatima Hashmi writes:

The memorial for the late Dr Barbara Harrell-Bond is taking place on 24 November 2018, at the Simpkins Lee Theatre, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. It will be the perfect opportunity to celebrate her life and her pioneering work in refugee studies with her family, friends, colleagues and the millions of people whose lives were transformed, including mine. Writing this blog has been an emotional journey for me, but I want to share what I learned from her and how influential she was in my life.

I got to know Barbara in 2014, through the Development and Emergency Practice (DEP) Masters course at Oxford Brookes University. It was Richard Carver's human rights module when I was introduced to the name of Dr Barbara Harrell-Bond. Yes, as strange as it may sound, I had never heard of her, let alone know what a legend she was in refugee studies. Richard mentioned that the students could take the opportunity to intern with her, which will be very beneficial for us, particularly for our dissertations. I casually said her name to my friend who had recommended the DEP course. Given that my friend worked in UNHCR in Islamabad, his response was 'this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to work so closely with the pioneer of refugee studies’. It was exactly that!

The first day I met her was at her famous flat in Oxford for the induction as an intern for the Rights in Exile Programme. Her way of teaching involved watching videos and real-life testimonies of refugees, which I must admit have stuck with me to this day. Her unwavering dedication for the voices of refugees to be heard and for the protection of their human rights was so infectious that I spent the entire day at her flat, long after the induction was over.

As an intern, I quickly learned the importance of writing coherent refugee testimonies, which Barbara advocated endlessly. It was hard to be detached from the (most often unbearable) stresses the refugees’ experienced. Given her anthropological background, she had developed a unique way of conducting refugee testimonies. It was instead a life history interview. The moments considered not as significant by the refugees were the ones Barbara would delve into deeper. No doubt, the majority of the cases were successful because of this method of approach towards conducting testimonies.

Over the next few weeks, I witnessed Barbara’s generosity and her continuous compassion for refugees for whom Barbara provided her flat as a sanctuary or a transit point. The ones who found refuge at her flat never felt as though she was doing them a favour because she firmly believed that ‘reciprocity is a human principle!!’. They in return would help cook delicious meals and also became interns for Barbara. I also had the opportunity to meet many intellectuals, academics and refugees from around the globe over dinner parties at her flat.

Anyone who knew Barbara would agree to her love of spicy food. To thank her for how much she had transformed my life, I started cooking Pakistani dishes for her. One of her most favourite dishes was Chicken Biryani. But Barbara felt uneasy that I always brought her Pakistani food. In one of our email chats she wrote ‘I miss you but don't dare tell you since you ALWAYS cook and won't let me pay’. And in the same email she introduced me to Marcel Mauss ‘The Gift’ and her essay on ‘The Experience of Refugees as Recipients of Aid’. This is how she taught me, through real-life experiences, which I would then put to use towards my essays and my dissertation. I found her so fascinating that I wanted other students to learn from her as much as I was learning. Any opportunity I got or whenever a colleague, friend, a Hazara community member asked me anything related to the topic of refugees, I would introduce them to Barbara, and she helped them with the same vigour.

As I was spending a lot of time with Barbara, she realised that I did not have a car and to make it easier she even insured me on her daughter’s car. From that moment on, there were endless dinners, drives and long chats. She had so many fantastic anecdotal stories (from the most light-hearted, fun, quirky ones.... unique to her.... to the most serious). We went everywhere, from hospital visits for her eyesight to court visits for refugee hearings.

At Fatima's graduation

During my time as an intern, I had several amazing opportunities to learn as much as I possibly could in the short time that I knew Barbara. I remember how she would insist on making the most of her knowledge and her connections in helping refugees. Like with everyone else she knew, she was gifted in pushing people to achieve the best versions of who they can be. Barbara was also my mentor, who helped me not only in my dissertation but also throughout the Master's programme. Needless to say, she also came to my graduation ceremony. I remember I was upset that my parents were not able to attend and she simply asked me to mark the date and time on her calendar.

One of the first things she said to me was ‘you have to get a distinction if you want to do a PhD’. The thought of a PhD had not occurred to me until that day. Barbara became an important figure in my life, as she did with all the people who knew her. She had an infectious personality, I included her in all of my major life decisions, and she was always seriously involved in making those decisions together. Given her teaching career at CENDEP, Barbara suggested that I should pursue my PhD at CENDEP because of the excellent support structure I already had in place, regarding the supervisory team.

Another thing I learned from Barbara was that field notes were a significant source of documentation, which today thanks to Barbara, we have the Refugee Studies Programme Documentation Centre, specifically archiving such documents. When I was conducting my research on the Hazara community in Oxford, Barbara organised for my visit to the RSP Documentation Centre. As we all know, Barbara struggled with remembering names and appointments, but she never forgot the important events. For example, she remembered that there exists one such field note from Quetta on the Hazaras forced migration from Afghanistan to Pakistan. Rightly so, I found that document dated from the 80s. In fact, there is no mention about Barbara’s work with the Afghans. During the 1980s, with the escalation of the Soviet War, Barbara had travelled to Quetta to attend a historic meeting with the Mujahedeen, who had battled against the Soviets. She also mentored one of the most notable figures in Hazara literature, Sayed Askar Mousavi and because I was conducting my research on the Hazaras, she arranged for me to meet him.

All the interns gained tremendous knowledge from her and today most of them are working in the humanitarian field, particularly in refugee studies, including many in the UNHCR. I too had the opportunity to attend the UNHCR Annual Consultations with NGOs, the very first year Barbara had to miss due to her health and insisted I stayed with her son David and her daughter-in-law Brigitte in France. They welcomed me in their home as a part of their family. What I loved about her the most was how much trust and faith she had in all of her interns. We were her troops, getting ready to continue her legacy.

Barbara’s steadfast professionalism, astuteness, brilliance and pragmatism was always a joy to watch. When my parents met with Barbara, the first thing my father mentioned was how energetic she was for her age and were shocked to see her working round the clock, to which she responded, ‘I don’t believe in retirement!’. Rightly so, in one of her most recent emails, she wrote ‘I don't have lots of time yet, losing my voice and my eyesight!! So, use me while I am still here’.

Torture prevention: recent and future events

Richard Carver writes:

Quakers against torture

Quaker Concern for the Abolition of Torture is holding a day conference in London this Saturday, 3 November. I will be speaking first, then listening to an array of really interesting presentations, including Professor Ray Bull on investigative interviewing, Dr Elizabeth Stubbins Bates on torture and conflict, and Anna Edmundson on the work of the UK’s National Preventive Mechanism. A £10 fee (£5 students) includes lunch. Friends House, Euston Road, London, 10.30-16.30. All welcome, but booking recommended (follow the link above).

Meetings in Copenhagen
It is more than two years since Lisa Handley and I published the findings of our research project: DoesTorture Prevention Work? It is extremely gratifying how much continued interest there is in our book. Over the summer, I was invited to advise DIGNITY, the Danish Institute Against Torture, on their future planning (and also gave a public lecture in Copenhagen). DIGNITY is a primarily medical organization caring for the survivors of torture, but also has a strong emphasis on prevention and detention monitoring.

German police against torture

I have just returned from a really interesting conference at the police university of Brandenburg in Germany. The focus was fair treatment of persons in police custody. I talked about torture prevention and there were a series of sessions on investigative interviewing, mobilizing police potential to realize human rights, and developing police capacities, among other issues.

The university is in Oranienburg, next to the Nazi Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Some of the college buildings are former SS barracks. To their credit, the university authorities do not shy away from the lessons and implications of this history.

Atlas of Torture
The Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Human Rights at the University of Vienna have long been an important actor in torture prevention and we were honoured to have them as partners in our research. Over the summer they have updated and relaunched their Atlas of Torture, which is an excellent online resource for anyone interested in the issue. Please go and take a look.

Review article on Does Torture Prevention Work?
Back in Copenhagen, Torture is a specialist journal focusing on the medical aspects on the subject. They have published a review article of our book by Dr Hans Draminsky Petersen, a former member of the UN Sub-committee for Prevention of Torture and a highly respected medical practitioner treating torture survivors. Dr Petersen is critical of our methodology and findings in ways that we don’t agree with – and the journal includes a short response on our part. However, we greatly appreciated his positive words about the contribution of our research to the existing scholarship on torture: “this book will represent a key source of knowledge in the field of torture prevention and be a valued handbook on torture prevention for many years to come.”

Words have consequences

This is not about torture prevention, but in light of recent events I had to refer back to something posted on the blog a few months ago. I wrote in March about the Hungarian government’s attacks on refugees and civil society activists, all justified by the claim that the billionaire George Soros is bankrolling Muslims to emigrate to Hungary and undermine its “Christian culture.” Soros being Jewish, the claim has more than a touch of the global anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.

Readers could be forgiven for thinking that I was exaggerating this nutty theory (although I did provide sources). In Hungary it worked, however, with the ruling Fidesz party re-elected in April and now pressing ahead with its anti-refugee, anti-human rights agenda.

This theme has now been taken up on the other side of the Atlantic. President Donald Trump and leading members of the Republican party blame Soros for funding protests against them and, in the latest version, for funding the “caravan” of Central American refugees now walking slowly through Mexico. Aside from the obvious point that the refugees, mainly Hondurans, are seeking to escape what the president would no doubt call a “shithole country,” it is unclear why Soros would fund this initiative unless he was seeking to help the xenophobic candidates in next week’s mid-term elections. Still, logic never got in the way of the Big Lie.

But people take this nonsense seriously. First, someone sent pipe bombs to George Soros and a number of prominent Democrats, including two ex-Presidents. The man arrested is a vocal Trump supporter. Secondly, a man gunned down 11 worshippers at a Pittsburgh synagogue, telling police he wanted to kill all the Jews. His motivation was alleged Jewish attempts to flood the country with immigrants and destroy white America.

Words are not merely words. They are actions, and they have consequences.