AFAD 25 Years Video Teaser

This AFAD video teaser is an opening salvo of the yearlong campaign and fight Against Enforced Disappearances and for the Protection, not Persecution, of Human Rights Defenders, across Asia.

a continuing crime
a disappearing act

What's Happening

On the International Day for the Right to Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims, the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) remembers the countless victims of summary and extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, torture and other human rights violations that occur routinely. AFAD likewise honors the thousands of human rights defenders who raise their voices for truth and justice despite being persecuted and threatened. We remember those who lost their lives in the quest for justice.

The Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) remembers Somchai Neelapaijit who was disappeared today, 15 years ago in Bangkok, Thailand.

Somchai was Thai Muslim lawyer and human rights activist. He is the former chairman of Thailand’s Muslim Lawyers Association and vice-chairman of the Human Rights Committee of the Lawyers Council of Thailand. He was last seen on the 11th of March 2004 as he was being dragged from his car by 5 police men in a busy street in Bangkok. Before his disappearance, Somchai was actively involved in a campaign to end martial law and also helped victims of torture. One day before his disappearance, he petitioned the state agencies against torture.

On the occasion of the International Women’s Day, the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) commemorates the struggles of women in the face of the continuing crime of enforced disappearances. AFAD pays a tribute to the unshakable resolve of women to search for truth about and justice for their disappeared family members. As per UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances General Comment on Women, women are victimized by virtue of their being family members of the disappeared and also by being disappeared themselves. 

The Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) expresses serious concerns over the proposal of the government of the Philippines to delist 625 cases from 1975 to 2012 of enforced or involuntary disappearances from the records of the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (UNWGEID).

The Federation

AFAD map