OMCT - Urgent Campaigns

The “Urgent Campaigns” programme is one of OMCT’s founding programmes. Its objective is to respond as quickly as possible to reports of grave violations of human rights submitted by the members of the SOS-Torture Network and other interlocutors. The objective of “Urgent Campaigns” is to protect victims; to act in anticipation and prevention; to pressure governments to respect international human rights norms and to prosecute the alledged authors of violations; and, to inform the various mechanisms of the United Nations, especially the Special Rapporteur on torture, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disapperances and the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, of individual cases of torture, disappearances and arbitrary detention.

The “Urgent Campaigns” programme intervenes through:

Urgent appeals: They can be co-signed by individuals, groups or other international organisations. They are addressed to the authorities of the country in which the violations occurred.
Press releases: They ensure the broad dissemination of information on cases of torture, and contribute to putting pressure on State authorities, who are subjected to international opinion.
Bilateral interventions: When a case of torture is reported late, OMCT does not simply chose not to intervene. Rather, it denounces the case by calling directly upon relevant State authorities.

Launched at the time of OMCT’s creation along with the “Urgent Assistance for Victims” programme, the “Urgent Campaigns” programme allows the organisation to be a unique source of information from the field.
All of OMCT’s programmes transmit specific urgent appeals. OMCT’s “Urgent Campaigns” programme intervenes in favour of victims of torture and other grave violations of human rights relevant to OMCT’s mandate.

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