Archive

PRI’s Programme Development Director to speak at Association of Members of Independent Monitoring Boards conference today

PRI’s Programme Development Director Nikhil Roy will be speaking later today at the conference at this year’s AGM/Conference of the Association of Independent Monitoring Boards (AMIMB), ‘Ready for Release’, which focuses on prisoner reintegration and rehabilitation. Nikhil will add an international perspective with a presentation on how other countries prepare prisoners for release. His presentation […]

Is there an emerging trend to see the death penalty as torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment?

Yesterday the UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, Juan Mendéz, presented his interim report to the 3rd Committee of the UN General Assembly in New York. Key among his conclusions was that “… the trend to abolish and the trend to restrict are both informed by a stated conviction […]

Another step closer for the Principles and Guidelines on Access to Legal Aid

The 3rd Committee of UN General Assembly adopted the draft Principles and Guidelines on Access to Legal Aid in Criminal Justice Systems last week. The Committee had before it a draft resolution, recommended for adoption by the Economic and Social Council. It adopted the draft resolution and recommended it for final approval by the General […]

Death Penalty and Human Rights: the Way Forward: Side event tomorrow – 24 October – at the UN General Assembly

Wednesday, 24 October 2012 6:15 pm – 7:45 pm Conference Room E, North Lawn Building (NLB) New York This side-event is organised by the Special Procedures Branch of the OHCHR in cooperation with PRI and the World Organisation against Torture (OMCT). The UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Mr Christof Heyns, and the […]

PRI MENA celebrates World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse at the Rehabilitation Centre for Juveniles in Amman

On Monday, PRI’s Middle East and North Africa office celebrated World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse at the Rehabilitation Centre for Juveniles in Amman. The event was organised in partnership with the Ministry of Social Development and was attended by 28 children detained at the centre, the Director of the Jordanian Juvenile Police, […]

Discrimination against women in the criminal justice system highlighted in PRI statement to the IPU today

PRI’s Chairman, David Daubney, will today deliver a statement to the Interparliamentary Union’s 127th Assembly in Quebec on discrimination against women in criminal justice systems. The statement will be delivered during a special debate on Citizenship, identity and linguistic and cultural diversity in a globalized world.  The statement focuses particularly on discrimination faced by women prisoners, and […]

Bryan Stevenson: Why mass incarceration defines us as a society

Last June, in two cases brought by Bryan Stevenson, in a landmark judgment, the US Supreme Court ruled that sentencing children to life without parole including for murder, without ever giving them a chance to prove that he or she had been rehabilitated, constituted cruel and unusual punishment. As well as profiling Stevenson’s work to […]

PRI and Freedom from Torture produce course manual for holistic rehabilitation for torture survivors

Torture has such a devastating impact that survivors may need help on a number of levels to effectively rebuild their lives. Holistic rehabilitation takes into account the varied and complex needs of torture survivors to help them to regain full physical, emotional and psychological health. In 2011, Freedom from Torture (previously the Medical Foundation for the Victims of […]

PRI MENA and the Yemeni Prison Directorate cooperate to protect vulnerable groups and train prison staff

Last week, Taghreed Jaber, Regional Director of PRI’s Middle East and North Africa (PRI MENA) office, and Yemen’s Prisons Director, Major General Mohamed Ali Alzelb, signed an agreement of cooperation for an initiative to protect vulnerable groups in Yemeni prisons and to provide training for Yemeni prison staff. The initiative is part of a wider […]

PRI Central Asia interviewed for a Channel Eurasia feature on the death penalty

PRI Central Asia’s Azamat Shambilov was interviewed as part of a Channel Eurasia feature on popular opinion on the death penalty in Kazakstan on World Day Against the Death Penalty last week. Click here to view it (in Russian)