The 'Hooded Men'

The Pat Finucane Centre has uncovered declassified British government documents showing London misled two official inquiries and the European Court of Human Rights on the existence of a secret interrogation centre in Ballykelly, County Derry. On 9 August 1971, 350-plus people were arrested and interned. Twelve of the internees were subjected to "deep interrogation". They were subjected to sleep deprivation, white noise, wall-standing, a diet of bread and water and hooding. These became known as "the five techniques." The European Commission on Human Rights called it torture.

1971
State Violence

55.04432, -7.02036

Related content

  • Declassified government documents on interrogations of Irish detainees in the 1970s

    PFC Presentation, St Mary's university College, Falls road Belfast
    06 August 2013
    The Pat Finucane Centre has uncovered declassified British government documents showing London misled two official inquiries and the European Court of Human Rights on the existence of a secret interrogation centre in Ballykelly, County Derry. On 9 August 1971, 350-plus people were arrested and...

  • Interrogations of hooded men were ‘taped’

    Gerry Moriarty, Irish Times
    20 February 2015
    New documents have been uncovered that confirm interrogations of detainees who became known as the “hooded men” were taped, according to the Pat Finucane Centre (PFC) in Derry.

  • Ireland v. UK: Revisiting the Treatment of the 'Hooded Men'

    Philip Leach, Jurist
    06 December 2014
    The Irish government announced this week that it is applying to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to re-open the case it instigated in the early 1970s against the UK government concerning the treatment in detention of fourteen IRA suspects, following their arrest by the British army under...

  • Torture Retold: How the Hooded Men case has come back under the spotlight

    Rita O'Reilly, Irish Times
    12 June 2014
    It was January 31st, 1972, the day after Bloody Sunday. The head of the army department in the British Ministry of Defence, John M Parkin wrote to the Chief of Staff, Northern Ireland, Brigadier Marston Tickell, seeking the facts on more than 100 allegations of torture and inhuman and degrading...

  • The RTÉ programme that prompted the Irish Government to seek a re-opening of the case at the European Court.

    RTE
    04 June 2014

  • Amnesty International urges action by UK and Irish governments

    Amnesty International Press Release
    24 November 2014
    ‘A request to the European Court must be lodged within the next two weeks. The clock is ticking’ - Colm O’Gorman. Allegations that the UK government sanctioned the use of torture and ill-treatment in Northern Ireland in the 1970s should be re-examined by the European Court of Human Rights and...

  • The Hooded Men

    Press release KRW LAW LLP
    24 November 2011
    KRW LAW LLP is instructed by a number of The Hooded Men, those interned by the British government in August 1971. These 12 men became the guinea pigs in the British army’s deployment of ‘deep interrogation’ or what has become known as The Five Techniques. These techniques had been developed in the...

  • The Hooded Men

    CAJ and PFC Press release
    24 November 2014
    The Committee on the Administration (CAJ) and the Pat Finucane Centre (PFC) welcome Amnesty International’s call to the Irish Government that it seeks to re-open the case it took against the UK in relation to the use of the "five interrogation techniques" inflicted on 14 men when internment was...

  • Hooded Men case

    PFC
    17 February 2017
    Four days of legal argument in the "Hooded Men" case has ended and Mr Justice Maguire has retired to consider his ruling. Karen Quinlivan, QC, like Hugh Southey QC before her, ended with a flourish, calling the British government's case "preposterous".

  • "Malice Intended" The Hooded Men

    Morning Star
    01 April 2017
    Anne Cadwallader tells the story of the Hooded Men, internees subjected to fine-tuned methods of torture, that left little physical evidence, in various imperial theatres of war – from Malaya to Kenya – imported by Britain to Ireland in 1971

  • Use of "torture" in 1971/ 72 was "a political decision"

    Pat Finucane Centre
    25 October 2017
    This letter, written 31 March 1977, explicitly states that torture in Northern Ireland was a political decision made by then Secretary of State Lord Carrington.

  • Ireland v UK 2018

    Judgement of ECHR
    20 March 2018
    ECHR have rejected application by Irish Government to revise the original judgement in the Hooded Men case ROI v UK 1978. The 1978 judgement found that the treatment constituted inhuman & degrading treatment, but not torture. Today the ECHR has upheld that judgement 6-1 (Judge O'Leary dissenting-...

  • COURT DELIVERS “HOODED MEN” JUDGMENT

    Friday 20 September 2019
    03 October 2019
    The Court of Appeal, by a majority of two to one, said it was satisfied that the treatment to which Hood ed Men had been subjected to would if it occurred today pro perly be characterised as torture , bearing in mind that the European Convention on Human Rights is a living instrument, but that the...