- Category: Statements
The Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) calls on the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to uphold the civil and political rights of journalist Mahmudur Rahman to free expression and freedom from torture.
AFAD is very much alarmed by recent violations of human rights in the country such as the alleged killings of ten people in Fatikchhari sub-district of Chittagong on 11 April 2013, the same day that State authorities shut down the operations of Bangladeshi newspaper Daily Amardesh, seized its computers, and arrested its interim editor, Mr. Mahmudur Rahman.
- Category: Statements
AFAD Statement on the 9th Anniversary of Somchai’s Disappearance
It’s been nine years since the prominent Thai human rights lawyer, Mr. Somchai Neelaphaijit was forcibly taken and made to disappear on 12 March 2004 in Bangkok, Thailand. Before he disappeared, Mr. Somchai was assisting torture victims for legal remedies against Thai security forces in the southern province of Thailand.
For nine long years, Somchai’s families did practically everything to find him and to seek for justice by bringing his case at the national and international bodies. However, nine years have passed, until now justice remains very elusive.
- Category: Statements
The Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) strongly condemns the Sri Lanka’s police and military forces’ halting of the families of the disappeared and human rights defenders in NorthSri Lanka from travelling to join a protest action in Colombo.
A mobilization of 600 people gathered in Vavuniya on 5 March to demand for truth and justice for their disappeared kin in a protest action organized by the Association of the Families Searching for theDisappeared Relatives set on the following day. The families initially intended to submit a petition to theUN office in Colombo to determine the fate of their loved ones.
- Category: Statements
Joint Statement:
- Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD)
- Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance (FIND)
- International Coalition Against Enforced Disappearances (ICAED)
Women everywhere are deeply affected by the global scourge of enforced disappearance. They are the wives, mothers, grandmothers, sisters, and daughters who are in the abysmal state of uncertainty and in perpetual search for their disappeared loved ones. They are often left behind to bear the socio-economic and psycho-emotional brunt of enforced disappearance. In cases when women are made to disappear, theyare particularly at great risk of sexual and other forms of violence.
- Category: Statements
Joint Statement:
- Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD)
- Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance (FIND)
- International Coalition Against Enforced Disappearances (ICAED)
Enforced disappearance is a continuing menace to human rights and civil liberties. The victims are not only denied due process of law but are also forced to endure unimaginable indignities.
Commission of enforced disappearance, by its clandestine nature, makes it extremely difficult to prove, even as investigators most often end up facing a blank wall. The direct or indirect involvement of security and law enforcement authorities make efforts to prevent this abominable offense, and to prosecute and put behind bars its perpetrators even more arduous. The deliberate scheme to conceal the fate and whereabouts of the disappeared renders the families’ search efforts often futile.
- Category: News
After 16 long years of concerned citizens’ hard-fought struggle to criminalize enforced disappearance in the country, there is now a law against Enforced Disappearance in the Asian region with the passage of RA No. 10353, otherwise known as the “Anti-Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance Act of 2012.” What’s more, its Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) have been recently crafted and signed.
- Category: Urgent Appeals
To: Ms. Rashida Manjoo, Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, Mr. Frank La Rue, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression; Mr. Maina Kiai, Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association; Ms. Margaret Sekaggya, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders; Mr. Christof Heyns, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions; and Mr. Olivier de Frouville, Chair-Rapporteur, Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances
From: Mugiyanto, Chairperson and Mary Aileen Diez-Bacalso, Secretary-General, Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD)
Date: 18 February 2013
Re: Alarming human rights situation in Nepal with the arrest of 23 human rights defenders and a mother with a three year-old child
- Category: Statements
The Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) calls on the Bhattarai government to uphold the rights of its citizens to free expression and peaceful assembly.
The recent arrest of 23 other human rights defenders including AFAD’s Executive Council Member, Mandira Sharma and a mother with her three-year-old daughter on February 16, 2013 is a clear violation of Nepal’s commitment to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). It is also a violation of the 1992 United Nations Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance which was unanimously adopted by all UN members on 18 December 1992.