Carina Tertsakian is a human rights researcher and campaigner based in London.  

Since 1987, she has worked for several international non-governmental organisations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Global Witness. From 1995 to 2000, she was Amnesty International’s researcher on Rwanda. During this period, she visited the country regularly and published reports on the human rights situation there, as well as on the situation of Rwandan refugees in neighbouring countries. From 2001 to 2005, she worked for Human Rights Watch, researching and reporting on human rights developments in Nigeria, Guinea, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. From 2005 to 2009, she led Global Witness’s campaign on the links between the exploitation of natural resources and armed conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 2010, she returned to Human Rights Watch where she was Senior Researcher on Rwanda and Burundi until 2016. Since then, she has worked primarily on Burundi, including as the Coordinator of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Burundi in 2017.

In 1999, Carina translated, updated and wrote a postscript for André Sibomana’s book Hope for Rwanda (Pluto Press). In 2017, she translated Still Standing: Conversations with Antoine Kaburahe (Editions Iwacu), an account of the life of the celebrated Burundian human rights defender Pierre-Claver Mbonimpa.

Le Château: the lives of prisoners in Rwanda was researched and produced independently, without external funding or support.