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Geneva, 21 June 2016 - In a judgment delivered today, the European Court of Human Rights narrowly ruled that Switzerland did not breach the European Convention on Human Rights by denying a Tunisian torture victim the right to seek reparations from his torturer. The victim, who was granted refugee status in Switzerland years ago in light of the torture he had endured,...

One morning in 2006 as he was leaving his house, Alain (not his real name) found himself eye to eye with about twenty policemen who had come to arrest him. Immediately taken to the police station, he was – wrongly – accused of preparing a coup d’état. Faced with his refusal to acknowledge the false allegations, the agents beat him. Alain was severely beaten and la...

Yohann (real name withheld) was an active member of the National Liberation Forces (FNL), an opposition party. A prominent political personality in his community, he first came under pressure in the run-up to the 2010 elections: arrest and arbitrary detention, public threats, harassment, etc. Fearing for his life, Yohann fled to another region of Burundi. After th...

Jules (not his real name), married with four children, was a long-standing member of the National Liberation Front (FNL), an opposition party. In 2010, a post-election crisis swept across the country, resulting in a deterioration of the safety of political opponents and a surge in extrajudicial executions. That was when Jules began to be persecuted and threaten...