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

Indian authorities must immediately stop the reprisals against human rights defenders in Jammu and Kashmir, especially Khurram Parvez, Irfan Mehraj, and the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) stated six international human rights organizations. Khurram Parvez has been arbitrarily detained since 22 November 2021 as a reprisal for his human rights work, including documentation and advocacy in Jammu and Kashmir. We are alarmed by new cases filed against Khurram Parvez and Irfan Mehraj, a journalist and human rights defender, in March 2023, and the ongoing reprisals against JKCCS.

For the last couple of years, Indonesia through its government has been romanticizing the criminalization of human rights defenders as a form of keeping civil society away from hoax or untruthful information. Although those that were stated by the human rights defenders were based on research and field practices, the government decided to sharpen their fangs with ‘defamation’ laws. The same pattern happened to Fatia Maulidiyanti and Haris Azhar, two of the prominent human rights defenders in Indonesia.

Odhikar continues to struggle for the establishment of a democratic state based on equality, human dignity and social justice. Odhikar monitors and highlights the human rights situation of the country, with the aim of ensuring the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the people. Odhikar has faced severe state repression and harassment since 2013. In 2022, government surveillance and harassment on Odhikar continued.

The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) claims that House Bill (HB) No. 77 or the proposed Human Rights Defenders Protection Act (HRD Protection Act) is a “grave, vicious, and insidious threat against democracy.” This, however, is self-defeating for the task force. Since its formation, NTF-ELCAC has been known to maliciously tag dissenters and critics of the government as communists and rebels, thus opposing the essence of a true democracy in which dissent should not be limited, much less demonized.

The Federation

AFAD map