- Category: Statements
30 August 2017
Official Statement on the International Day of Enforced Disappearance
It has been 69 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), a milestone document in the history of humankind, was put in place on 10 December 1948 at the Palais de Chaillot, Paris, France. And yet, the world has not rid itself of one of the worst forms of human rights violation - enforced disappearance (ED). As of 2016, the UN has been considering 43,250 outstanding cases of ED in countries, a figure which is below the actual number of cases, many of which have been underreported due to various reasons.
- Category: Statements
Free Masood Janjua! Stop torture and injustice!
This had been a battle cry of many Pakistani human rights defenders and human rights organizations all over the world. It has been 12 years of endless search and investigations for the disappeared Pakistani educator, businessman and philanthropist Masood Janjua.
- Category: Press Releases
Press Release
20 July 2017
Authenticated by: Aileen Diez-Bacalso, Secretary General
MALAYSIA Manila—The Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) urgently calls on the Malaysian authorities to immediately release recognized human rights lawyer and defender and AFAD Council member, Adilur Rhaman Khan. Khan, 57 was arrested by the Malaysian immigration police at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport ( KLIA) at 4am, Thursday morning (July 20 12AM GST). He was accosted by Malaysian authorities without charges.
- Category: Press Releases
Press Release
20 July 2017
Authenticated by: Aileen Diez-Bacalso, Secretary General
Manila—The Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) urgently calls on the Malaysian authorities to immediately release recognized human rights lawyer and defender and AFAD Council member, Adilur Rhaman Khan. Khan, 57 was arrested by the Malaysian immigration police at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport ( KLIA) at 4am, Thursday morning (July 20 12AM GST). He was accosted by Malaysian authorities without charges.
- Category: Statements
AHRC-STM-XXX-2017
17 July 2017
A Joint Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission, the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances and Odhikar, on the Day of International Criminal Justice
BANGLADESH: Affording justice to victims is not on the State’s agenda
Hong Kong/Dhaka/Manila; 17 July 2017: One of the three main goals of Bangladesh’s War of Independence was ‘social justice’ coupled with ‘equality’, and ‘human dignity’. The word ‘justice’ connotes ‘just behavior or treatment’ without any bias or discrimination. In another word ‘justice’ is a guaranteed process of addressing a citizen’s grief, by all means, through the justice mechanisms and administrative systems of a State beyond any abuse of power or negligence. The Institutions that are expected to uphold justice require capabilities to ensure that the victims of crime and the victims of abuse of power are dealt with fairly in accordance with the right to a fair trial.
- Category: Statements
You came to us as God’s precious gift
As a friend; a retreat master;
A co- rallyist during Marcos’ darkest years;
A good shepherd to the little ones of God’s flock;
A spiritual adviser and an ardent follower of Christ Jesus,
The Most Holy Redeemer....
- Category: Statements
A Call for Solidarity on the International Torture Survivors’ Day
26 June 2017
"... Most of them lived the rest of their lives in the detention centers, hooded or blindfolded, forbidden to talk to one another, hungry, living in filth. The center of their lives - dominating the memories of those who survived - was torture. They were tortured, almost without exception, methodically, sadistically, sexually, with electric shocks and near-drownings, [some burried to their necks and left in the sun and the rain for days. They were] constantly beaten, in the most humiliating possible way, not to discover information - very few had any information to give - but just to break them spiritually as well as physically, and to give pleasure to their torturers."[Ronald Dworkin, in the introduction to "Nunca Mas, Argentina "]
- Category: News
A two-day training session, mainly for the female relatives of Enforced Disappearance (ED) victims, was organised by Odhikar on the 19th and 20th of April, 2017 at the Caritas Development Institute Dhaka, Bangladesh. 17 relatives of the victims of ED participated in the training programme and amongst them 12 were women and five were men. As she was not able to keep her child somewhere else, one wife of a victim of ED brought her seven-year-old son to the programme as well. The training sessions were participatory, informative and also sensitive as some family members of victims were highly traumatised. The training sessions were conducted with the psychological conditions of the family members of the victims in mind.