Filipina wins Mignone International Human Rights prize

HUMAN rights activist Mary Aileen D. Bacalso, secretary-general of the Asian Federation against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD), is this year’s awardee of the Emilio Mignone International Human Rights Prize.

Bacalso said she was informed Thursday by the embassy of Argentina in the Philippines of the award “in recognition of her work against enforced disappearance in Asia and the world.”

Bacalso will travel to Buenos Aires on Dec. 10 to receive her award in a ceremony to be attended by Argentinian government officials. Aside from her funded travel to Argentina and a plaque, Aileen will also have speaking engagements in different organizations.

Bacalso said “I will be honored to receive this prestigious award soon which will be given not only to me but also to the disappeared and their loved ones and the rest among us in this bigger global movement against enforced disappearances. Let this be an important victory for the cause of the disappeared and their families in the Philippines, in Asia, in Latin America and in the rest of the world.”

Keep the Faith! We are with you in Seeking Justice for your Disappeared Loved Ones!

On the 23rd anniversary of the Day of Disappearances at the Monument of the Disappeared in Colombo, Sri Lanka, the Secretary-General of the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD), Mary Aileen Bacalso, calls on the families of the disappeared to “keep the faith and persist in the struggle for justice of their loved ones.”

Ms. Bacalso lauds the women, men and children who are gathered today at the Monument of the Disappeared for their steadfastness to seek justice even under an increasingly repressive government. “We know how difficult your situation is, because you are confronted not only with the economic and psycho-emotional effects of the disappearance of your loved ones, but also the increasing repression of human rights under the present Rajapaksa government. making you vulnerable to arrest, detention and also enforced disappearance in the course of finding justice,” Ms. Bacalso adds.

AFAD statement: Appeal Regarding the Case of Adil Khan, Odhikar

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVjZDjTJYrM

Shot by: Candy Diez
Edited by: Mark King Baco

Survivors and Families of Victims of Enforced Disappearances Look Forward to Indonesia’s Ratification of the International Convention From Enforced Disappearance to end impunity!

Families of victims of enforced disappearances, through the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) laud the Indonesian Parliament for the current deliberations towards ratifying the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (Convention).

"Now that the Convention is being deliberated in the Parliament, I hope that it will not take a long time, because it was even the Parliament that recommended the government in September 2009 to ratify the Convention as soon as possible. The ratification of the Convention will provide legal protection for every citizen from heinous crimes of enforced disappearances in the future," Mugiyanto, the Chairperson of AFAD and IKOHI (an organization of survivors and families of victims), himself a survivor of disappearances in Indonesia in 1998 says.