内容摘要：– Khobby was living in Dubai last year when he received an intriguing message about a well-paying job working online in a far-flung corner of Southeast Asia.

– Khobby was living in Dubai last year when he received an intriguing message about a well-paying job working online in a far-flung corner of Southeast Asia.

, mostly Syrians fleeing civil war, sought asylum, Pau Aleikum Garcia was in Athens, helping those arriving in the Greek capital after a perilous sea journey.The then 25-year-old Spanish volunteer arranged housing for refugees in abandoned facilities like schools and libraries, and set up community kitchens, language classes and art activities.

“It was kind of a massive cascade of people,” Garcia recalls.“My own memory of that time is oddly patchy,” he admits. Though there was one encounter that stood out.In one of those schools in Athens’ Exarcheia neighbourhood, where refugees painted the external wall to illustrate their memories of their journeys, Garcia met a Syrian woman in her late 70s.

“I’m not afraid of being a refugee. I have lived all my life. I’m happy with what I have lived,” he recalls her telling him. “I’m afraid that my grandkids will be refugees for all their life.”When he tried to reassure her that they would find a place to start anew, she protested: “No, no, I’m worried, because when my grandkids grow [up] and they ask themselves, ‘Where do I come from?’ they won’t be able to answer that question.”

The woman told him how, during the family’s journey to Greece, all but one of their photo albums were lost.

Now, she said, all the memories of their lives in Syria existed only in her and her husband’s minds, unrecorded and unrecoverable for the next generation.A new investigation by Freedom from Torture has found that UK universities are offering postgraduate security and counterterrorism education to members of foreign security forces, including those serving some of the world’s most repressive regimes. These institutions are offering training to state agents without scrutinising their human rights records, or pausing to consider how British expertise might end up being exploited to silence, surveil or torture.

The investigation reveals that British universities may not just be turning a blind eye to human rights abuses, but could also be at risk of training some of the abusers. Some universities have even partnered directly with overseas police forces known for widespread abuses to deliver in-country teaching. Others have welcomed individuals on to courses designed for serving security professionals from countries where torture is a standard tool of state control. All of this is happening with virtually no oversight of the risks to human rights.These are not abstract concerns. They raise serious, immediate questions. What happens when the covert surveillance techniques taught in British classrooms are later used to hunt down dissidents? Why are universities not investigating the backgrounds of applicants from regimes where “counterterrorism” is a common pretext for torture and arbitrary detention?

Freedom from Torture’s investigation found that universities across the UK  are accepting applicants for security education from some of the world’s most repressive states. Yet just one university in the study said they are screening out applicants who they believed have either engaged in human rights violations or “intend to”.Torture survivors in the UK have