Resource Library

Angkar, screened on June 16 at the New York Human Rights Watch Film Festival, follows Khonsaly, a victim of the Khmer Rouge, on his journey to the village he fled almost 30 years ago. The film, produced by Neary Adeline Hay about her father's experience with torture and repression, is an intergenerational offering to truth and memorialization work that dances between the inheritance of abuse and its painful recollection by a survivor.

Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was recently sentenced by the ICTY to 40 years for genocide and crimes against humanity, crimes which have decisively shaped the society in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In this essay, ICTJ’s Refik Hodzic explores what would it take for this poisonous legacy to be dismantled and makes a case for acknowledgement and reparations as matters of moral imperative, but also of political necessity.

The internationally acclaimed documentary “The Silence of Others" about the forgotten victims of Franco's fascist dictatorship in Spain brings much-needed attention to the right to the truth.

With enforced disappearances on the rise, ICTJ President David Tolbert says the path to prevention is clear: the international community must reorder its priorities and change its approach. The disproportionate attention on counterterrorism takes us further away from accountability and prevention, Tolbert writes. He urges the international community to lead the way in unequivocally censoring governments that use enforced disappearance as a political tactic — and ensuring there can be no impunity for this crime.

Alex Boraine, founder of the ICTJ and soldier in the struggle for human rights around the world, will be laid to rest in Cape Town today. He has been called the “Prince of Peace” for his lifelong commitment to transforming South Africa’s society through truth, reconciliation, justice, following the horrors of apartheid.

On October 2, an award ceremony honored the winners of the amateur photography contest on memory, called “Images to Resist Oblivion,” organized by the Center for Historical Memory and the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ). View photo galleries from the three winning submissions.

NEW YORK, March 15, 2012—Brazilian federal prosecutors announced yesterday that they have opened a criminal investigation against a military officer accused of the enforced disappearance of civilians during the 1964–1985 military dictatorship. This is a welcome blow against the use of a 1979 amnesty law to shelter government agents who committed horrific crimes against civilians from accountability.

To offer assistance and international expertise to Tunisian civil society groups, ICTJ partnered with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) for a training on public engagement in truth seeking processes. Titled “The Role of Civil Society in Truth Commissions: Participation and Advocacy for Victims in Tunisia,” the training offered around 65 participants the opportunity to examine the role of truth commissions in contexts of transitional justice, and to assess future engagement of their organizations in Tunisia’s proposed truth commission.

On December 17th, six years to the day after Mohamed Bouazizi set fire to himself and sparked the “Jasmine Revolution,” Tunisia’s Truth and Dignity Commission heard public testimony about events that unfolded during the revolution and the abuses of the regime it overthrew. Read victims' moving testimony about state violence, torture, corruption and marginalization as the country continues to grapple with its painful past.

On the International Day for the Right to Truth we spotlight one of the most powerful ways truth commissions can reassert victims' dignity: public hearings. These open events can have a potentially cathartic power for victims and their families, but also the public at large by generating solidarity and empathy for the suffering of others in societies deeply polarized and traumatized by atrocities and denial.