Reprieve (organisation)
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Reprieve is any of a number of not-for-profit organizations around the world which work against the death penalty, with a particular focus on legal support for those facing the death penalty or held in secret prisons around the world. The founding Reprieve organization is in the UK, and there are also organizations in the United States, Australia and the Netherlands, with additional supporters and volunteers worldwide.
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[edit] Reprieve UK
Reprieve aims to use the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantánamo Bay.
The first and largest of the Reprieve organizations, Reprieve UK, was founded in 1999, one year after the death penalty was officially abolished in the UK (although having not been exercised since 1964), by human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith. Smith has represented over 300 prisoners facing the death penalty in the southern United States and has helped secure the release of 65 Guantanamo Bay prisoners as well as others across the world detained in placed such as Bagram Theatre Internment Facility, Afghanistan, who claim to have been tortured by the United States government.
Reprieve currently works to represent 15 prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, as well as an evolving caseload of death row clients around the world. It investigates international complicity in renditions and most recently, has started working with the Foundation for Fundamental Rights in Pakistan, aiming to create conversation around the use of drones there.
Reprieve UK has twenty five staff in London and seven Fellows in the US and Pakistan. Its patrons include Martha Lane Fox, Jon Snow , Alan Bennett and Julie Christie
Current cases include Libya's Sami al-Saadi, stateless Palestinian Abu Zubaydah, Linda Carty and Yunus Rahmatullah
Recent cases include Samantha Orobator, Binyam Mohamed, Muhammad Saad Iqbal, and Akmal Shaikh, an EU national executed by the Chinese government.[1]
[edit] Reprieve US
Reprieve US was founded in 2001 by anti-death penalty lawyers in New Orleans, Louisiana, inspired by the UK organisation.
[edit] Reprieve Australia
Reprieve Australia was founded in 2001 by a group of Melbourne lawyers. It works to support those facing the death penalty around the world, with a particular focus on work in the Southern states of the US.
[edit] Reprieve Netherlands
Reprieve Netherlands is a new organization, founded in 2006, twenty-four years after the Netherlands abolished the death penalty, by a group of Dutch people who had previously worked in capital defence offices in the United States. It shares the goals of the other Reprieve organizations.
[edit] References
- ^ PO Box 52742. "Reprieve—Akmal Shaikh, mentally ill British national who has been sentenced to death in China, will today plead for his life in court". Reprieve.org.uk. http://www.reprieve.org.uk/2009_05_26akmalshaikhmentallyillBritishnationalwho. Retrieved 2011-12-20.
[edit] External links
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