The Duty to Account: Justice for Victims of Human Rights Abuses

The HRA's justice and accountability mandate is concerned with the failure of legal and institutional systems to deliver justice to those who have been harmed, and with the active use of legal mechanisms by powerful actors to suppress dissent and silence critics. The Association works to expose impunity, support individuals navigating dysfunctional justice systems, and call on states and institutions to meet their legal obligations.

What the HRA Addresses

• Custodial deaths and torture in detention, including cases where individuals die or sustain serious

  harm in state custody and investigations are inadequate, closed prematurely, or manipulated to

  protect perpetrators.

• Politically motivated prosecutions and the weaponisation of legislation, including extremism laws,

  defamation statutes, and emergency powers, against human rights defenders, journalists, and civic

  activists.

• Acquittals or non-prosecutions in high-profile cases of abuse, killings, and trafficking where political

  considerations have shielded perpetrators from accountability.

• The use of judicial secrecy to deny individuals access to their own case materials, obstructing their

  ability to seek redress through domestic or international mechanisms.

• Institutional silence in the face of documented abuse, including the failure of national governing

  bodies in sport, government ministries, and judicial authorities to respond to formal findings or

  credible allegations.

• Sentences disproportionate to offences, particularly in the context of drug laws, protest activity, and

  political speech.

ACTIVE AND COMPLETED CAMPAIGNS

Sattankulam Custodial Deaths — India

The HRA engaged with the case of nine Indian police officers convicted in connection with custodial

deaths in Tamil Nadu, calling for the sentences to be upheld and for the survivors and families of

victims to receive full and transparent justice.

Ghenadie Ciorba — Transnistria

The HRA issued a press release and bilingual pitch in English and Romanian calling on Russia to

answer for the arbitrary detention, extremism conviction, and inhuman treatment of Transnistrian

civic activist Ghenadie Ciorba, whose case was communicated by the European Court of Human

Rights to Russia and Moldova in April 2026. The HRA grounded its call in the established ECHR

jurisprudence of Ilascu and Others v. Moldova and Russia.

Kokila Annamalai — Singapore

The HRA called on Singapore to drop criminal charges against human rights defender Kokila

Annamalai, prosecuted under POFMA for refusing to publish a government-authored correction on

her personal social media accounts following posts about the scheduling of a death row execution.

The HRA characterised the prosecution as a criminalisation of opinion and called for POFMA

reform.

Brazilian Football — Systemic Impunity

The HRA's research report on persistent risks for women and children in Brazilian football

documented the acquittal of all defendants in the Flamengo dormitory fire, the return to

professional football of a convicted murderer, and the CBF's institutional silence across multiple

incidents of gender-based violence, as a pattern of systemic impunity.

Media & Institutional Partners

Justice and accountability campaigns are pitched to legal affairs and investigative desks at national

outlets in the relevant jurisdiction, and to international human rights media including The Guardian,

Reuters, and regional outlets. ECHR-related campaigns are pitched bilingually where the affected

country has a non-English primary language. The HRA files or supports formal communications to

UN treaty bodies and Special Rapporteurs where domestic remedies have been exhausted or are

unavailable.