UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : HRC – Press conference: Special Rapporteur on torture

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you very much for joining us at this press briefing today with the Special Rapporteur on Torture, Dr Alice Jill Edwards.

She'll address you today on the subject of her annual thematic report to the Human Rights Council, Hostage taking as Torture.

Before we begin, I want to remind you that this press conference is embargoed until March 4th, when the Special Rapporteur delivers her statement to the Human Rights Council.

As usual, we'll begin with a brief opening statements from Doctor Edwards and then move to questions.

With that, I give the floor to Doctor Edwards.

Thank you very much, and thank you so much for being here.

Before I turn to my report, which is on hostage taking and torture, I want to mention a number of other situations that I have have been involved in over the last year or more, in particular in relation to Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine.

I welcome the negotiations on a peace deal.

In addition to security guarantees, it will be important that any future peace arrangement also includes special provisions for justice and accountability.

That is absolutely fundamental.

Russia's use of torture in this conflict I have called synonymous, that this conflict is synonymous with torture and that use of torture is systematic and widespread.

Those victims and survivors need and deserve justice.

It will also be very important that exchange of prisoners happens swiftly and immediately, and also that they are treated in a dignified manner throughout that process.

I would also call on the Russian authorities, in particular as a gesture of goodwill, to allow immediate access to the International Committee of the Red Cross to all Ukrainian detainees.

By way of a footnote, the ICRC has constant contact with Russian prisoners of war held by Ukraine.

Moving on to the Gaza situation and the Gaza Israel war, I am hopeful that a ceasefire will hold and humanitarians assistance, which has been recently prevented from entering, will be able to resume swiftly.

We really need a new deal on the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and establishing A pathway to peace that serves the Palestinian people and involves civilians in its design and that also serves the security interests of Israelis.

Again, justice and accountability must be part of that process, including violations committed since the on the 7th of October and since the 7th of October by all sides.

I continue to investigate allegations of torture and I'll treatment of Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons, as well as pushing for the release of Israeli and other hostages in respect of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

We are seeing events unfolding before our eyes.

I'm very distressed to see the levels of violence and there is an urgent need to the United Nations and the wider international community to address them.

This conflict in the east has been going on for way too long and there are far too many victims, including victims of torture and sexual torture, which appears to be being perpetrated without end and with full impunity.

I also wanted to mention Sudan.

It's regrettable that this is turning into a prolonged conflict of gross proportions.

I have spoken out on multiple occasions with other Special rapporteurs about the deteriorating circumstances and the widespread violations, including those of torture and also sexual violence.

And the final circumstance that I wanted to mention was Syria.

I welcome talks that are being undertaken by the new transitional government with multiple stakeholders.

Some groups have not yet been included, so I would invite them to expand their representation.

I would also insist that women are included.

Women have been known to be the world's best peacemakers and for long term settlement of disputes.

All parties and all civilians in a society should be involved.

I just wanted to mention the International Court of Justice case being taken by Canada and the Netherlands against against Syria that is still progressing regardless of the change in regime.

I submitted a large document of crimes that have been committed over the last 1314 years, since 2011, which I've presented to the parties and to the court.

And once again, justice and accountability in any new structures will need to be made, will will need to be ensured.

And also for all of these contexts, the roles of victims and survivors in designing their destiny together with other actors is absolutely essential.

I'd now like to turn to the report that I'm presenting to the Human Rights Council on torture and hostage taking.

I am reminding the Council of the indignity and torture of taking hostages.

I have had appeals from governments, non governmental organisations, even some fellow experts to not mention specific countries or situations.

My reports timing has been criticised and some have even obstructed my desire to speak out about hostages.

Some have even accused me of bias for raising the plight of individuals against who are being held and taken against their will, who have become bargaining chips in political or financial transactions that have little or nothing to do with them.

Yet at this point in time, right now, there are people of many different nationalities, most of them civilians, who are being held against their will without access to international observers or consular officials.

This report should be welcomed by anyone who believes in human rights for all, who supports an international legal system that does not discriminate between victims, and who seek to end torture.

The report is looks at this from two different perspectives.

1 is state hostage taking and the other is non state hostage taking.

Of course that distinction works in many cases, but there are also circumstances where the states are involved, either through finance, through weaponry, through other means of supporting non state actors, and the line between the two is not always clear cut.

I have interviewed more than 20 hostages and members of their families for the purposes of this report, including persons who've been released from state arbitrary detention and those who've been released by terrorists or criminal groups.

They tell me about that they were seized without warning, that they were held in rancid prisons and other hellholes in jungles, basements and tunnels, how they were kept without captive, without proper judicial charges or procedures and without any in in many cases, any of the basic standards that are expected under international law when people are being detained.

What is particularly deplorable in the ways in which hostages are being held is also the deliberate mistreatment which is part of the perpetrators strategies to secure better concessions in the hope that their governments will be willing, more willing to negotiate if they know that their nationals are being held in terrible conditions or being subjected to torture or other I'll treatment.

That type of manipulation is unconscionable.

I'm calling on the Human Rights Council and the actors to do more to read and root out this evil.

History is littered with examples of hostage taking.

The report does provide a a selective list of hostage taking over the years.

Of course we were not able to put all of the different circumstances in there.

The worry on the state hostage staking taking side is that this is becoming a cynical pseudo diplomatic tool that is being used by a small number of states who detain foreign nationals on fabricated or highly inflated charges to extract confessions from other states.

I will be distinguishing between prosecutions on legitimate criminal charges from these other circumstances where there are no foundations for the charges and charges actually do not proceed or the judicial procedures do not actually happen.

This is often done to target foreign or dual nationals to blackmail their country of nationality.

My report documents cases in China, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Russia, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.

That is not the complete list.

It is a practise that is going on also in other parts of the world.

But they are some of the repeat offenders.

There are no global statistics.

We have done our best to try to capture as many modern day circumstances as possible.

International Hostage International has helped more than 500 hostages over the past two decades.

At the end of 2023, another organisation, Hostage Aid Worldwide, reported that there were people of 53 nationalities being held against their will, against their will, waiting for a bargain to happen between the parties, turning to hostage taking in as a weapon of armed groups and terrorists.

You may immediately think, of course, about the 251 men, women and children abducted violently on the 7th of October 2023 by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups.

They have suffered terrible atrocities during that time and now we are hearing more stories as they are released.

I want to make it clear that speaking up for the Israeli hostages, including twenty other nationalities, does not undermine or silence in any way the other victims of this terrible conflict.

It is beyond doubt that the conflict has been utterly devastating for Palestinian civilians and my mandate is pursuing multiple allegations of torture and I'll treatment of Palestinians in Israeli detention.

The fate of many other hostages remains unknown.

We can think of the 98 girls who are still missing after being abducted by Boko Haram and at least 30 humanitarians in Yemen who are being held by the Houthis.

In fact, there are around 90 humanitarians that are currently have been abducted with the point of political leverage.

So the report also documents why I consider hostage taking torture.

And what I say is that hostage taking is almost always torture.

It starts at the very early stages of this abrupt abduction that is unseen by those individuals, and it continues through their detention through poor prison conditions or other types of harm.

Many stay in desperate isolation for months and some for years.

Several hostages I spoke to talk of talked of beatings, starvation, humiliation, and even mock executions and sexual torture.

Many were left without any social contact or medical care, constant fear of death or the unimaginable anguish of never being found or released, and most had suffered serious trauma from these experiences.

It's also important to recognise the families of these individuals, many of whom put their whole lives that they stopped their whole ordinary lives in order to campaign for their family members.

Some have ended in financial ruin in doing so, have lost their jobs, and some even have been silenced by their governments because strategies are going on.

But they're not well kept, informed and of course children of hostages cannot comprehend what has happened to them.

The health consequences of these ordeals are widespread, including PTSD, chronic anxiety, other series help health issues, both physical and psychological.

And as I said, many have they returned to lives that no longer exist.

The report contains A comprehensive set of recommendations.

And just to mention a few to you, now there are 176 UN member states who are party to the 1979 International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages.

That's nearly as many as a party to the Convention Against Torture, which has 175 states parties.

Yet the Hostages Convention is rarely mentioned because of the total impunity.

Hostage taking remains a low risk, **** reward crime and to change this we must hold perpetrators accountable and they should be harnessed partially, including those who aid and abet them.

So I'm requesting the International Criminal Court to step up investigations.

The new Draught International Treaty on crimes against humanity regrettably does not include hostage taking as an explicit offence, which would then mean that it would always need to be incorporated under the torture prohibition.

I think those involved in that process should relook at that and amend that draught treaty.

And meanwhile, states should indict and prosecute hostage taking, including using universal jurisdiction.

Families need better representation, so I am recommending that their governments appoint senior level hostage liaison officers to keep families informed and involved.

[Other language spoken]

These are very complex negotiations.

Needs to be more senior.

You may find it surprising.

I find it surprising that at the UN level there is no UN entity or person responsible for to advocate for hostages or to represent their interests in negotiations.

So I'm asking the Secretary General, with the support of member states, to appoint an SRSG on hostage taking.

And I'm also calling for targeted sanctions such as Magnitsky sanctions to be deployed against perpetrators and those confiscated assets and funds could be used to establish AUN Hostage Support Fund is a a wealth of area, a big area where we also need early warning prevention and monitoring.

And this is best undertaken in a multilateral setting.

And I will be encouraging states to sign on to Canada's initiative on arbitrary detention in state to state relations.

79 countries have already signed up to their declaration.

Victims must see justice and be compensated and rehabilitated with long term psychological, medical and financial support and they should be legally recognised as survivors of torture.

[Other language spoken]

Doctor Edwards, the Special Rapporteur will now take questions.

[Other language spoken]

So begin with the room and then move to people who are joining us online.

Please state your name and organisation when you ask a question.

[Other language spoken]

My first question, in your opening remarks to talk about the situation between Russia and Ukraine, you talked about the situation of Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russia.

At the same time, according to OHCHR, almost all of the Russians prisoners of war in Ukraine have been tortured.

Are you investigating these complaints and these allegations?

Are you working on them?

Because it was not in your opening remarks.

Do you want me to ask all the questions at the same time or or 1 by 1?

Is the second one a follow up?

[Other language spoken]

The second one is on another topic, then I can answer this one first.

[Other language spoken]

My visit to Ukraine in September 2023 had two objectives.

One was to look at the process of investigation and documentation of crimes of torture.

These are the Ukrainian civilians and soldiers, prisoners of war.

And on the other hand, I also visited and took account of the standards of treatment for Russian prisoners of war.

At the time of my visit and the the location that I visited, the standards of treatment were more or less in line with international standards.

They had been monitored on a regular basis by the ICRC of all of those people we interviewed.

There were and it's documented in my report a few cases of what I would call inhuman and degrading treatment in the period between capture and arrival at that facility.

So most of the most, in fact all of the cases we heard and there were only a handful of them related to that.

By after capture and going into kind of intelligence circumstances.

[Other language spoken]

I understand the OHCHR report.

[Other language spoken]

The distinction I would make is the and torture and inhuman integrating treatment is always prohibited.

There are no excuses for it.

[Other language spoken]

The the types of torture are of a different nature and character, however.

So the and in that I mean there are are there were allegations of degrading treatment, of humiliation, of some physical violence and that is all prohibited on the Ukrainian side.

There are serious allegations of long term starvation, mock executions, widespread degrading ceremonies of induction, rapes, sexual violence, genital mutilations, genital electrodes, etcetera.

[Other language spoken]

But all of those practises are prohibited.

And yes, I am following up on those.

I haven't recently received any submissions.

I occasionally get submissions from the National Human Rights Institution of the Russian Federation.

They all, the ones I've received so far, all relate to potential crimes in the perpetration of the war, but not torture.

So I've not been able to act on those ones.

Just about the the last report of Oisha, it is also about sexual violence against the Russians.

Prison of the four.

My second question is about the first mobilisation in Ukraine.

It is also regarding to the last report of OHCHR.

They told that the consensus objectors have been tortured by military recruiters.

It was religious people that were not agreed to take weapon to fight because of their religious views.

And according to OHCHR, they have been tortured in the military centre of recruitment.

Do you have any information on these cases and especially with the force mobilisations in the streets of Ukraine?

I don't have anything additional to what OHCHR has presented.

What I can say is, you know, there is military service and there is a right to conscientious objection, understood especially on religious grounds, but also sometimes on political grounds.

If one refuses to fight because they do not agree with the objectives or consider the war has been perpetrated in a manner that they object to, those individuals should be put through a particular procedure to ensure that that objection is genuine.

And at no time should they be subjected to pressure or any other types of coercion, not least, of course, torture or other I'll treatment.

[Other language spoken]

Do we have sure and and the last is not about Ukrainian and Russia.

It is just a semantic questions because we asked it to OHCHR and it was tried to understand the answer.

What is the difference between the hostages in Gaza that were taken by Hamas and 10 thousands, around 10 thousands Palestinians that I've been arrested after the 7th of October without any prosecutions, without tribunals and that have still in prison in Israel and according to HCHR that have been tortured and sometimes with dogs, etcetera.

And what is the difference?

Can we say that these people are also hostages?

[Other language spoken]

So the, the definition of hostage taking is where someone is being taken with the purpose to use them as leverage or that purpose, even if it wasn't there at the beginning, emerges later.

So sometimes in some wars, people are being kidnapped just with the purposes of holding them.

But later they, the, the kidnappers transpire a way in which they can use them to find a concession or a benefit.

So that that is the that is the difference.

The 7th of October hostages have been taken with the view to exercising leverage those taken and there are a wide range of different circumstances of the Israeli detention regime.

So those that are have been detained in the context of hostilities.

In any other war, we would consider them prisoners of war, not hostages legitimately taken in terms of fighting.

And others who've been caught up in this melee after having been reviewed, if there are no charges to be presented to them, should have been automatically released.

So one hand is detention pure and you know, detention.

Our normal framework of detention and the taking of hostages is either to provoke a response, to make an exchange.

So exchanging people.

There are many cases where prisoners are taken in order to exchange.

I haven't received information in the call for submissions or any other documentation that I can point to that the Israelis have done that with the purpose of having better exchange.

I mean, they have 10,000 Palestinian prisoners presently.

They don't even need to kind of do it for that purpose.

But if that should transpire, then they, too, could fall under the hostage rubric.

So it's really the intention of the the hostage takers to take people for the purpose of negotiating something.

Thank you, Doctor Edwards.

We have Nick online from The New York Times.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you for the briefing.

When you talk about accountability for hostage taking and if you look at October the 7th, I wonder who do you think is liable to be held accountable for the October 7th hostage taking since it was a mass attack and how do you envisage that accountability being actioned, implemented?

Secondly, in your investigation of the treatment of Palestinian detainees, I wonder if you have identified what happened to Doctor Adnan Albert and whether you have been given access, proper access to the Israeli authorities involved in that case.

[Other language spoken]

I think I think these are really good questions about, you know, accountability.

There are various ways in which perpetrators can be held accountable.

My preference would be that there that prosecutions would occur through an independent and impartial body.

Israel has obligations to undertake this accountability under their their ordinary criminal law.

However, because of the circumstances of this conflict and legitimacy for any such prosecutions, an independent and impartial body to prosecute those, both the people involved, those aiding and abetting and those directing the 7th of October attacks do need to be held accountable.

Some, even some UN or international imprimatur around that would be useful also in that context.

Then also to be able to hold Israel accountable for the crimes committed.

Also on the other side, I don't have information about that particular individual.

I am intervening in a range of cases.

I have not been granted access by the Israeli authorities, but I have had now five different briefings and they did reply to my letter from May last year, which documented a wide range of types of torture and other I'll treatment both Gaza and the West Bank.

We continue to follow up.

I do raise these cases, cases with them when they are presented to me and I'll I'll look into this specific case you mentioned.

[Other language spoken]

Are there any further questions?

[Other language spoken]

So if if that is the case, we'll close this press conference now just with the reminder again that this briefing is embargoed until the Special Rapporteur presents her report to the Human Rights Council tomorrow, 4th March.

And I want to thank the Special Rapporteur for being here today and joining us.

And off to all of you joining us here and online.

[Other language spoken]

HRC – Press conference: Special Rapporteur on torture - 03 March 2025