| |
Reprieve executive Clare Algar with Labour MP Frank Dobson at Camden Town Hall |
Fighting to keep prisoners campaign alive
Former commercial lawyer fighting for closure of Guantanamo Bay and investigating government’s role in torture tactics collusion
VACANCY: Special investigator wanted by leading human rights charity Reprieve for research into British collusion in torture around the world.
Now that’s a job description to solve a mid-life crisis or two.
Reprieve’s executive director Clare Algar has read 350 job applications for the post in one day, finding time to squeeze in a quick interview with the New Journal, before addressing the Camden Labour Party’s annual meeting in the Town Hall and bounding off for “another one of those pesky dinners”.
She has an impressive CV of her own. A Cambridge graduate, she left her highly-paid job in a commercial law firm aged 28 to work at a crisis centre in Mississippi, overturning legislation barring prisoners on death row from representation.
Now a qualified lawyer in England, she is heading up Reprieve’s European litigation team – working to persuade countries to accept Guantanamo Bay detainees awaiting release – and calling the government to account over claims it is colluding in torture tactics that are banned in this country.
Ms Algar, who lives in Hampstead High Street, said: “I think the government is, at the very least, aware this is happening. One of our clients, Mohammed Saad Iqbal Madni, says he was transferred by Britain from Jakarta to Egypt where he was tortured for three months. We are mainly talking about beatings and electrocution.”
Reprieve, which is based in Clerkenwell, is best known for its work with prisoners on death row and campaigning for those awaiting release from Guantanamo Bay.
Ms Algar’s latest client was Lindy Carty, a British schoolteacher originally from St Kitts, who is facing the death penalty in Texas after being found guilty of murder on dubious evidence. Her case was widely reported on after a man broadcast a recording of her voice from Antony Gormley’s fourth plinth art installation in Trafalgar Square.
“We sent a reporter out to visit her and they came back with a voice recording from her,” said Ms Algar.
“I think the plinth protest was quite newsworthy and powerful – I think that was why it got so much media attention.”
But not all death row cases are so lucky to be followed in the British mainstream media.
“I think when it’s in America people listen,” said Ms Algar.
“They think the US is this civilised place, which it mostly is. So when they hear people are going to die there it upsets them.
“It was totally different for the Samantha Orobator in Laos. She was in some ways much more British than Lindy Carty, who is from St Kitts – but we got a huge amount of hate mail for supporting her. We always get hate mail, but we got a lot more than usual for that one.
“I think it was because she was a drugs mule.”
Ms Algar said Reprieve’s new challenge is to help Barack Obama stick to his word and close Guantanamo Bay.
“There are currently 60 prisoners who are officially cleared for release in Guantanamo – but are being held there all the same.
“Some are staying there out of their own choice because they fear how they will be treated when they return. It is proving hard to resettle in places like Algeria and Tunisia. Portugal have been very good.
“It was wonderful what Obama said, but it isn’t enough unless he actually closes it. And in any case, I think we should in some ways be more worried about Bagram in Afghanistan. They have just spent $50million on it. The kind of crap that goes on at Guantanamo could well continue. Bagram could turn out to be Guantanamo’s evil twin.”
Ms Algar was born in the Royal Free Hospital in Pond Street, grew up in Belsize Park and went to South Hampstead secondary school. She said she could not imagine living anywhere else than Hampstead, despite lamenting the “profusion” of women’s clothes shops in Hampstead High Street.
She appears to have met her match with one in particular.
“Hobbs wanted to install a skylight in their roof,” added Ms Algar. “We had fought them off before.
“It would mean we could see right inside their shop from our flat – and it would send a big beam of light up into our home at night. If it goes through we cannot appeal. There is only an appeal if the application is turned down – what sort of a system is that?”
The application was approved later that night by Camden Council. |
 |
|
| |
| |
