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

20th July, 2018

Manila: AFAD strongly condemns the slandering statements made against Sombath Somphone and his family during a United Nations Review of the deteriorating human rights conditions in Laos. 

Sombath Somphone was a community development worker from Laos who was disappeared on 15th of December 2012. Since then, the family of Sombath has been running a campaign called ‘Return Sombath Campaign’ to know the truth about what happened to him and seek justice from the Lao government.

Press Release

Jakarta, Indonesia and Dili, Timor-Leste

13 July 2018

15 July 2018 marks the 10th anniversary of Per Memoriam Ad Spem [Through Memory towards Hope], the final report of the Commission of Truth and Friendship (CTF) of Indonesia and Timor-Leste. This initiative, the only bilateral commission in the world, was tasked with strengthening peace and friendship between the two countries by revealing the conclusive truth about the nature, scope, and causes of the violence committed in East Timor in 1999. Many people appreciated the CTF as the way to acknowledge the past and support the building of good relationships.

ASSOCIATION OF PARENTS OF DISAPPEARED PERSONS
The Bund AmiraKadal, Srinagar – 190001, Jammu and Kashmir

Press Release, 12 July 2018

For twenty-four years, the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) and its individual members and volunteers have been campaigning against the phenomenon of enforced or involuntary disappearances in Jammu and Kashmir, wherein more than 8000 people have disappeared since 1989. Today, JK SHRC passed a crucial order directing Senior Superintendent of Police of the SHRC police wing to hold an enquiry, if necessary, into 132 cases of disappearance in Banihal Tehsil (Ramban district, Jammu division) and 507 cases of disappearance in Baramulla and Bandipora districts (Kashmir division) and file a report within three months.

11 July 2010 - Today, AFAD remembers Redemptorist priest and social justice activist Fr. Rudy Romano with profound honor and respect on his 33rd year of enforced disappearance. Devoted to the poor and marginalized, Fr. Romano staunchly condemned the barefaced culture of impunity and violence during Ferdinand Marcos’ tyrannical regime. He wholeheartedly served the poor by dedicating his life toward the attainment of justice and peace, and sharing meaningful teachings centered on ‘conscience toward genuine freedom. On July 11, 1985, witnesses said that Fr. Romano was taken by military intelligence agents in Labangon, Cebu City, which was the last time he was publicly seen.

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