- Category: Statements
“Strengthening AFAD in its Second Decade of Struggle Towards a More Effective and Enduring Response to Enforced Disappearances in Asia”
In faith and solidarity, we, the Task Force Detainees of the Philippines, extend our greeting to Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) and all its member organizations.
- Category: Statements
On this day, 69 years ago, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly at its third session, which was held at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris, France. The adoption of this historic document marked a big leap in the struggle to defend and uphold human rights everywhere in the world.
AFAD CONDEMNS THE ASSASSINATION OF FR. MARCELINO PAEZ, DEMANDS TO BRING THE PERPETRATORS TO JUSTICE!
- Category: Statements
The Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD), a regional human rights federation based in the Philippines, strongly condemns the brutal assassination of Fr. Marcelino Paez of the Catholic Diocese of San Jose in Nueva Ecija. Reports say that Fr. Paez was gunned down by unidentified men in Jaen, Nueva Ecija on Monday evening, 4 December 2017.
- Category: Statements
Violence against women is endemic in Bangladesh. Women and girls are subjected to domestic violence, rape, dowry and its related violence, acid violence, stalking and sexual harassment, etc. As per a 2015 survey of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, more than 80% of married women in the country are abused at least once in their married life, be it
physically, sexually, financially or emotionally.
- Category: Statements
Published: 00:05, Nov 20,2017 | Updated: 00:08, Nov 20,2017
POLICE investigators saying that they have found no evidence of any criminal gang being involved in the abduction of North South University teacher Mubashar Hasan Caesar, which took place on November 7, points to a pertinent, yet concerning issue. The teacher, who is an anti-extremism analyst, was picked up from in front of the IDB Building in the capital city 10 minutes after he had left the building. The incident, like any other incidents of enforced disappearance, caused a stir, with family, friends, rights and civic groups demanding that the government should find him out. He still remains untraced. But now that the police have fund no ‘criminal gang’ being involved in the incident, it is the duty of the government and the law enforcement agencies to find out who the people were that have criminally picked him up and where he has been kept. On the other front, Aniruddha Kumar Roy, a businessman and honorary consul of Belarus to Bangladesh, who went missing on August 27, has finally reached, or has been re hed, near his house at Gulshan in the capital. Aniruddha seems to be one of the few of about 402 people who, as rights group Odhikar puts it, disappeared between January 2009 and October 2017 and returned.
- Category: Statements
Published: 00:05, Nov 14,2017 | Updated: 00:50, Nov 14,2017
ENFORCED disappearances coming to be a dominant feature is gravely concerning. At least six people disappeared from Gulshan, Khilgaon and Agargaon in the capital city in November 5–8. Rights group Odhikar, as New Age reported on Monday, comes up with a figure of 402 people going missing between January 2009 and October 2017. There were two cases of enforced disappearances reported in 2009, 18 in 2010, 31 in 2011, 26 in 2012, 54 in 2013, 39 in 2014, 66 in 2015, 91 in 2016 and 74 in the first 10 months of 2017, as the rights group puts its statistics based on such incidents reported in national newspapers. Fifty-two of them were later found dead, 198 could be traced or were shown arrested and 152 still remain untraced. And 36 of such people went missing only in 2017. Another rights group, Ain O Salish Kendra, comes up with a figure of 202 for enforced disappearances between January 2015 and September 2017. But people cannot simply disappear. Someone somewhere should know what has happened to them. Odhikar says at the Rapid Action Battalion and the police picked up 80 per cent of the 402 people who disappeared; in the remaining cases, as the rights group puts it, there are ‘law enforcement agencies’ and ‘people from the government’ involved.
- Category: Statements
The Asian Federation Against Enforced Disappearance (AFAD) expresses its utter dismay that the case against the alleged abductor of forced disappeared victim Jonas Burgos lost in the lower court. This is a travesty of justice and a manifestation of the longstanding culture of impunity that is deeply embedded in Philippine society. The 9-page decision penned by Presiding Judge Alfonso C. Ruiz of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court (QCRTC), Branch 216, absolved Major Harry Baliaga Jr. of the crime of arbitrary detention of activist Jonas Burgos. This absolution passed despite the presence of a witness who identified Baliaga as the abductor of Jonas in a restaurant inside a Quezon City Mall, as well as other circumstantial evidence that connected the former to the abduction of the latter.
- Category: Statements
10 October 2017
The Asian Federation against Enforced Disappearances (AFAD) congratulates Odhikar Bangladesh on its 23rd founding anniversary. Odhikar which means “rights” in the Bangla language has been in the forefront of the struggle for human rights in Bangladesh for 23 long years. The precarious and high risk political situation in Bangladesh has not been an obstacle in your fight for a democratic country where rights are respected and protected.