- Category: IDD-AFAD-MO
To commemorate this year's International Week of the Disappeared (IWD), Member Organizations (MOs) of the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) conducted a campaign on two fronts, continuously calling on the government to end enforced disappearances (ED), while at the same time raising general public's awareness on ED. The IWD reminds us of the work left to be done in attaining a world without disappearances. As the struggle continues, AFAD and its MOs remain steadfast in speaking and seeking truth about enforced disappearances.
- Category: Statements
Melbourne/ Hong Kong/ Manila/ Kuala Lumpur/ Bangkok/ Dhaka/ Geneva/ Paris/ Washington, D.C.; 25 May 2023: We, the undersigned organisations, are seriously concerned over the unabated enforced disappearances in Bangladesh amid the denial of access to justice for the victims. We also express our deep concern regarding the plight of the victims’ families, lack of accountability for such violations, and lack of due process and judicial safeguards to the victims and their families.
- Category: Statements
Bangladeshi authorities must end reprisals against Odhikar and its leadership and respect the fundamental rights to freedom of association and expression. Those working to document and expose human rights violations should be able to conduct their important work without fear of harassment, intimidation, and reprisals,.
- Category: Statements
Sixteen human rights organisations today called on the Indian authorities to immediately stop the reprisals against human rights defenders and organizations in Jammu and Kashmir, especially Khurram Parvez, Irfan Mehraj, and the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS). Khurram Parvez[1] 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 criminal cases filed against Khurram Parvez and Irfan Mehraj, a journalist and human rights defender, in March 2023, and the ongoing reprisals against JKCCS.
- Category: Statements
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.
- Category: Statements
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.
- Category: Statements
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.
- Category: Statements
Re: The Republic of Korea’s speedy accession to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and effective implementation to fulfil its responsibility as a global pivotal state
Dear President Yoon Suk-yeol,
We welcome the National Assembly’s assent to the Republic of Korea’s accession to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance on 8 December 2022. Now, we urge your government to speedily accede to the Convention, followed by declarations recognizing the competence of the Committee on Enforced Disappearances to receive and consider communications from individuals or other states parties under articles 31 and 32 of the Convention and measures to ensure effective domestic implementation of the Convention to fulfil the Republic of Korea’s responsibility as a global pivotal state.
