Despite the enormously difficult climate for human rights and those who defend them, over the last 12 months Human Rights First has been involved in a series of international courtroom successes involving Human Rights Defenders.
Last September, a court in the eastern Polish town of Hajnówka acquitted five people charged with helping migrants near the border with Belarus. They were accused of giving food, dry clothes and transportation to an Iraqi couple with their seven children and to an elderly Egyptian man they found in a forest. They faced up to five years in prison.
We went to Poland to observe the trial, and submitted evidence to the court about one of the defendants we knew personally, attesting that he was motivated by human rights.
The case was closely watched across Poland as a test of whether helping people in trouble could be treated as a crime. Judge Adam Rodakowski said the offense requires the accused to obtain a financial or personal benefit, and there was no evidence the activists had gained anything.
At same courthouse in Białystok we also observed the trial of local activist Bartek, a volunteer and legal representative of a young Somali man seeking asylum in Poland. Border guards pushed the man back into Belarus without registering his claim in October 2024. When Bartek tried to assert his client’s rights he was charged with “influencing the official duties of the Border Guard” and faced up to three years in prison. He was also acquitted last September.
Then in Belfast in February this year, the Court of Appeal quashed the 1972 convictions of Patrick Laurence O'Neill on explosives and ammunition charges. O’Neill served 12 years of a 15-year sentence after being convicted on confessions obtained through torture during four and a half days of continuous interrogation at Palace Barracks.
We had documented O’Neill’s torture in an investigative report we co-authored, Bitter Legacy, which formed part of the Criminal Cases Review Commission’s decision to refer his case back to the Court of Appeal. We also submitted documentation to the court in support of O’Neill’s appeal.
Human Rights First attended the hearings and the verdict at the Belfast courthouse, where Lady Chief Justice Keegan called the prosecution “unconscionable.” O'Neill, now 82, said he had waited 54 years for that day.
We were back in Belfast court in April for the verdict of the inquest into the July 1972 killings of five civilians by British soldiers at Springhill/Westrock district of the city. We had campaigned for years with families of the bereaved for the inquest into the killings of three children, a local priest and a father of six. The verdict that none of the five should have been killed was a vindication of the families’ struggle for truth over many difficult years.
Also in Belfast the public inquiry into the 1989 murder of human rights lawyer Pat Finucane finally opened in June of this year. For decades, Human Rights First has worked alongside the Finucane family to support their campaign for a full independent inquiry inquiry with the power to compel documents and summon witnesses. The new statutory inquiry finally opened in June 2026, and will examine the role of state actors in the murder.
Meanwhile in an Arizonan court in March, we testified in an immigration case hearing of a Ukrainian woman claiming asylum in the United States, giving evidence on conditions in the country and what returning her would mean. Much of what we know about conditions in Ukraine comes from repeated visits to Kharkiv and the eastern front, helping activists there evacuate people from the frontline. The court granted her asylum.
In July we were with Bahraini activists Saeed Shehabi and Moosa Mohammed in the UK Supreme Court when it ruled that Bahrain could be sued in British courts for hacking their laptops while they were living in Britain. Bahrain argued that operating the spyware from abroad placed its conduct beyond the reach of English law, but the Court rejected that argument by a 3–2 majority. We have worked with both activists for many years. Dr. Shehabi and Moosa Mohammed can now take their case to trial, over a decade after the alleged hacking.
Outside the courtroom we also fought for accountability in Bahrain. Last month, when we learned Prince Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa of the country’s ruling family was due to compete at a horse racing event in Sweden, we submitted a dossier to the Swedish police, urging them to question him over allegations that he personally tortured people in 2011, including Swedish national Mohammed Habib Al-Muqdad. We also submitted separate appeals to the organisers of the event and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Prince Nasser later withdrew from the race.
Working alongside local lawyers and human rights activists over many years, sometimes decades, we have been able to help them win important victories, even in these difficult times.
