The founder of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT), Dr Inge Genefke, will receive the Yves-Pélicier Prize from the International Academy of Law and Mental Health. The award will be given to Dr Genefke during the 29th International Congress on Law and Mental Health, which takes place in Paris, France from July 2-8, 2005.
Two prizes are presented to highly distinguished individuals who are regarded to have made extraordinary contributions in areas related to the International Academy of Law and Mental Health.
This year the prizes will be awarded to Inge Genefke as well as to the Honourable Irwin Cotler, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, a renowned human rights lawyer and former law professor at McGill University.
Dr Genefke has been fighting for the rehabilitation of torture victims and for their justice even before she founded the IRCT 20 years ago.
She has previously been awarded with The Right Livelihood Honorary Award, The alternative Nobel Prize, Commandeur de la Légion dHonneur, France, Société dEncouragement au Progrès (gold medal), France and Commander of the Order of Bernardo OHiggins, Chile and many other awards.
In 2004, the Danish medical doctor appeared as an expert witness in a case in Peru where a family was fighting for justice after two children had been tortured to death. This conference will mark the one year anniversary of the day the family obtained justice.
On July 8, 2004, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Costa Rica passed the final sentence in the case Gómez Paquiyauri vs Peru concerning two Peruvian children, Emilio (14) and Rafael (17) Gómez Paquiyauri. The two brothers were arrested, tortured and killed by the Peruvian police in 1991.
The State of Peru was charged with violating several articles of the American Convention on Human Rights and the Inter American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture, including violating the right to life, the right to humane treatment, the right to personal liberty, the right to a fair trial and the right to judicial protection.
At the conference in Paris, Dr Genefke will contribute with a lecture about her experience from this case; “The Gomez-Paquiyauri case versus the state of Peru before the Inter-American Court. Making States Accountable for Torture and Extrajudicial Execution of Children in Context of Internal Armed Conflict.”
Additional Information:
– The IRCT is an independent, international health professional organisation working for the rehabilitation of torture victims and the prevention of torture worldwide. The IRCT is an umbrella organisation for approx. 200 rehabilitation centres and programmes for torture victims representing every region of the world.
– At the 29th International Congress on Law and Mental Health in Paris, IRCT Secretary-General Brita Sydhoff, is chairing the sequence about “Refugees and Asylum Seekers”. Other IRCT staff members are lecturing. Professor Bent Sørensen, Senior Medical Consultant at IRCT and former member of the United Nations Committee against Torture and the Council of Europes Committee for the Prevention of Torture is lecturing on the “The Use of the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment.” Professor Thomas Wenzel, University of Vienna, who will begin a position as Head of the Programme Unit at the IRCT in August is lecturing on “The Massacre of Nanking: A testing Stone for Transcultural Understanding of War Crimes.”
– Furthermore, member organisations of the IRCT network are represented at the conference. Nora Balke, the Berlin Center for Treatment of Torture Victims is lecturing on “Day Hospital: A New Approach for the Treatment of Traumatized Refugees in Germany”. Lilla Hárdi, the Cordelia Foundation for the Rehabilitation of Torture Victims, Budapest, is lecturing on “Care for Caregivers.”
– Dr Seggana Musisi, Makerere University in Uganda worked as a consultant for the IRCT on a project for improved documentation and investigation in torture cases. He will give a lecture on the project, which was funded by the European Union and implemented together with the World Medical Association and in collaboration with the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey and the Physicians for Human Rights, USA, “Implementing the Istanbul Protocol, the Uganda Experience.”
Poul Struve Nielsen, Media Co-ordinator, International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT), www.irct.org, [email protected], P.O. Box 9049, 1022 Copenhagen K, Phone 33 76 06 49 (directly), 23 34 55 09 (mobile), Fax: 33 76 05 00
