The lives we've saved this year

Jon Snow, Channel 4 News Presenter and Reprieve Patron

It is an incredible feeling to know that, because of all of us, someone who faced death is now free and safe. This has happened many times in the past and will continue to happen as long as we’re here. Just recently, four years of work by Reprieve staff and supporters paid off – Ibrahim Halawa was acquitted and freed after facing a death sentence in Egypt for the ‘crime’ of attending a protest. And now is the time to make sure we continue in 2018. Sometimes we need to campaign, and sometimes we need to help fund Reprieve’s incredible caseworkers. Now is the time to donate – it will be doubled and make twice the impact. With a combination of legal action and public pressure, we have accomplished so much. This year alone:

• In the US, we continued to ensure that medicines are not misused in lethal injection executions, and execution rates are falling. Right now, 22 of the 31 executing states have not carried out executions this year.
• We were the first organisation to reveal a massacre at the hands of US forces in Yemen. Our on the ground investigations uncovered that 23 innocent people, including an 8-year-old girl and a newborn baby, were killed in a needless operation authorised by President Trump.
• We launched an urgent campaign to stop the execution of Ivan Teleguz in Virginia. After thousands of our supporters wrote to the governor, Ivan was granted clemency.
• We continue to ensure that Guantanamo is not forgotten. In January, our client Salman Rabei’i was finally released from Guantanamo Bay, after nearly 15 years of unlawful detention.

But there is a lot more to be done in the year to come. As you read this, the Saudi authorities are preparing to kill another prisoner – they are currently executing one person every three days. 41 detainees are still being held and abused in Guantanamo. Drones are killing innocent people as the world watches on. Thank you for being part of ending these abuses. Thank you for campaigning so hard for the victims of human rights abuses – and for donating now to make sure Reprieve is ready to hit the ground running in 2018.