Omega has published our Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31st March 2024.
During the financial year, Omega started to work as part of the United Against Torture Consortium, along with the Association for the Prevention of Torture (APT), REDRESS, the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT), and the International Federation of Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture (FIACAT).
Omega was central to important developments towards international rules banning the trade in inherently abusive goods, and regulating the export of law enforcement weapons and equipment that can be misused for torture, supporting the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture with her report on the subject.
Omega also provided key inputs to the UN Model Protocol for Law Enforcement Officials to Promote and Protect Human Rights in the Context of Peaceful Protests developed by the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association.
Omega partnered with organisations working in Bangladesh, France, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Peru, and Uzbekistan, organising training on issues related to torture and other ill-treatment, which we delivered to over 150 people, including protest monitors, prison monitors, and other human rights defenders.
Over the past five years, there has emerged a global crisis of eye injuries, including blinding, caused by police use of multiple kinetic impact projectiles in crowd control operations, sometimes using shotgun-fired metal pellets (often using hunting ammunition), or projectiles made of rubber or plastic. Omega collaborated with Colombian survivor group Movimiento en Resistencia Contra las Agresiones Oculares del Escuadrón Móvil Antidisturbio (MOCAO), participating in a Colombian Senate Human Rights Committee hearing, speaking at the premiere of the film Reborn Eyes – Surviving Ocular Mutilation in which they were involved, and speaking to international lawyers about the subject.
Read more in our full report.