Unredacted, a research unit based in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Westminster, is undertaking a multiyear investigation into the use of rendition, secret detention and torture by US and UK intelligence agencies in the “war on terror” and beyond. Their research is supporting ongoing cases at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) and has received national press coverage, including from The Guardian.
Unredacted is led by Westminster colleagues Professor Sam Raphael, Professor in International Relations and Human Rights, and Dr Jac St John, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations. The team, which includes two Quintin Hogg Trust (QHT)-funded doctoral researchers, Namir Shabibi and Lydia Day, investigates and documents secretive UK state and corporate practices in the context of national security.
Their work helps to uncover the details of secretive practices and identify abuses of power, enabling others to hold governments and corporations to account. For example, their research contributed to a documentary with BBC Panorama and has forced the Government to establish a public inquiry into war crimes in Afghanistan.
Unredacted’s Torture Project builds on earlier work with The Rendition Project, an ESRC-funded project which ran from 2010-2019 and was at the forefront of efforts to uncover the use of rendition, secret detention and torture by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and its allies in the “war on terror”. The Rendition Project’s final report in 2019, CIA Torture Unredacted, co-published with The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, remains the most detailed public account to date of the CIA torture programme.
Unredacted is now picking up where The Rendition Project left off. In June, the Torture Project launched the world’s largest public collection of documents relating to the use of rendition, secret detention and torture by US and UK intelligence agencies in the “war on terror” and beyond. The archive contains hundreds of CIA cables and memos from within the programme, first-hand accounts from former CIA prisoners, the so-called “torture memos” from the US Department of Justice which purported to authorise the use of “enhanced interrogation”, and documents relating to the companies and aircraft involved in transferring prisoners within the CIA’s network of secret prisons.
Findings from the Torture Project have already been used in cases at the IPT, a secretive court established as a forum for complaints to be lodged against UK intelligence and security agencies. In June, the IPT held hearings in cases filed by Mustafa al-Hawsawi and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, two men held at Guantánamo Bay who allege that the UK intelligence agencies were complicit in their torture and mistreatment in CIA prisons.
Unredacted has provided substantial research support to the legal teams representing both men, including publishing detailed public briefings collating evidence of their mistreatment. For example, the team uncovered evidence that while Hawsawi was held by the US in a secret prison in Afghanistan where he was repeatedly tortured, CIA headquarters sent a cable to interrogators, requesting that they “press” the prisoner for information about alleged terrorist activity in the UK. This key development was covered in an article for The Guardian.
About the research Professor Raphael, Director of Unredacted, said: “The team’s research suggested there had been a clear interest in interrogating Hawsawi about specific UK-based operatives and plots at a time when he was being subjected to the worst kind of treatment. It raises an obvious and important question which remains unanswered: was British intelligence, which we know was directly and deeply involved in post-9/11 prisoner abuse, feeding questions to the CIA?”
Unredacted’s work directly contributes to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions. Since 2019, the University of Westminster has used the SDGs holistically to frame strategic decisions to help students and colleagues fulfil their potential and contribute to a more sustainable, equitable and healthier society.
Learn more about Politics and International Relations courses at the University of Westminster.
