THE PROBLEM
Torture is one of the most horrific crimes that can be perpetrated against a human being, designed to dehumanise a person through calculated acts of cruelty. Torture is illegal under international law, and there can be no justification for using it.
Every year, around 100 British nationals allege that they have been tortured or ill-treated abroad.
Consular protection can be an important safeguard against torture. In practice, this means communication with and access to a detainee in prison as well as other actions. In the words of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, ratified by the UK in 1972, the purpose is to protect “the interests of the sending State and its nationals.” Current UK policies allow the government to intervene on behalf of its nationals to ensure that their basic needs are met, and their fundamental rights are respected.
However, in the UK there is no right to consular protection. Instead it is solely a matter of policy and therefore any action that is taken is at the discretion of the UK government.
CONSEQUENCES
The risk of torture is greatest immediately after arrest and in the first hours of custody. Often, people are held incommunicado, without any access to lawyers, family or consular representatives, and often in an unknown location. Jagtar Singh Johal, a British citizen who alleges he was tortured while detained abroad, has described being “stripped and beaten” and electrocuted several times a day after he was first arrested in November 2017 in Punjab, India.
Detainees can also be at risk of torture and ill-treatment at any other time. When Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe returned to prison after six days in hospital for medical treatment, she described how guards kept her in solitary confinement in a small room in a closed ward under close guard, where she was handcuffed and chained to the bed at all times and prevented from seeing or communicating with her family.
The introduction of a legal right to consular protection would be an opportunity to ensure greater protection for all British nationals abroad and would have the potential to fill a gap in accountability for failures to provide effective consular protection.
The provision of consular assistance to thousands of people each year is not an easy task and requires significant resources. However, while British consular services have been extremely effective in some cases, many families have expressed their frustration at the apparent gap between their expectations of what the British government will do to protect its nationals at risk abroad and what it actually does.
Many families experience a lack of transparency in the decision-making process, and have criticised the government for effectively prioritising other foreign policy considerations over the protection of their citizens’ rights.
Last year REDRESS published a report, Beyond Discretion: The Protection of British Nationals Abroad from Torture and Ill-Treatment, which described the experiences of several British nationals and dual nationals detained abroad and the kind of support they and their families have received from the UK government.
The report concluded that despite the significant efforts of the UK government in individual cases, the overall practice of providing consular protection is inconsistent, lacks transparency, and needs to be strengthened to protect ALL British nationals abroad.
By Josie Fathers
Josie Fathers is an Advocacy Officer at REDRESS, a specialist international human rights organisation that uses the law to seek justice and reparation for survivors of torture. REDRESS has been working with the families of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, Jagtar Singh Johal and Andy Tsege to raise their cases in international and regional human rights forums. You can support them here.