Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances

Statements of AFAD

Proceedings:

Articles on the Proceedings on the AFAD Leadership Training
Jan. 27 - 31, 2003, Philippines

AFAD Second Congress Resolutions
August 2003

Remembering Munir

AFAD Second Congress
August 26-30, 2003 in Bangkok, Thailand

AFAD’s Mid-Year Report

Ding Zilin's
Message To
Hong Kong

Again, The KONTRAS – IKOHI Office Was Attacked

“ If they are dead, tell us”!

My sons, where are they?

"Human Rights NOW! Families of the Disappeared Assert Their Right to Truth "

Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances
Human Rights Day Statement
December 10, 2007

The Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD), in cooperation with the Working Group on Justice for Peace in Southern Thailand, holds its Human Rights Day activity on December 10, 2007 in Thailand. This commences AFAD's three- day Summing-Up of the Rehabilitation and Direct Assistance Program that has been implemented since 2003.  It is timely for AFAD to commemorate the 59^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by assessing its human rights work in Asia, specifically its rehabilitation and direct assistance work. For many years, the families of the disappeared are suffering from the loss of their loved ones and from the scourge of injustice. But through AFAD's efforts, they are now beginning to gradually overcome the pain and to follow the footsteps of the desaparecidos who made the supreme sacrifice for the cause of social transformation.

The summing-up activity, entitled: "Sharpening our Healing Capacities Towards Empowerment " aims to come up with an objective summing-up of our strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats in order to garner lessons of the past and quantitatively and qualitatively upgrade AFAD's services to the families of the disappeared in our search for empowerment. It is attended by representatives of AFAD member-organizations in Indonesia, Nepal, Philippines, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Kashmir , families of the disappeared, experts in the field of psychology who conducted psycho-social rehabilitation program to the families of the victims and friends and colleagues from AFAD's network in Latin America , Africa and Europe and the AFAD Secretariat.

Today, as we commemorate the 59^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we reckon that our work becomes as relevant as ever as the human rights situation in our region goes from bad to worse.   The litany of names of desaparecidos of the world becomes longer. Since the establishment of the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances in 1981, the total number of cases transmitted has reached 49,070. Asia is the continent which submitted the highest number of cases to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.    Thailand, where we hold this event, is not exempted from these countries with outstanding and even recent cases of enforced disappearances, one of which is the unresolved disappearance of lawyer Somchai Neelaphaijit.

Last year, AFAD's international advocacy work has borne fruit through, among other things, the establishment of an internationally binding normative instrument that would guarantee the right of every person not to be subjected to enforced disappearances and the right to truth. Through the concerted effort of many nations which recognize enforced disappearance as a global phenomenon and their legal and moral obligation to put an end to this heinous crime against humanity, the United Nations Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances was adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 20, 2006.   The United Nations Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances will not enter into force unless signed and ratified by at least twenty states. So far, 75 member-states have affixed their signatures and three have ratified it.   An unhill struggle, achieving signatures and ratifications from Asian countries is AFAD's major task in the next years to come.

As we commemorate this day, AFAD vows not to cease in creating a legal and political environment in Asia which recognizes and respects the right not to be disappeared. It will continuously raise social awareness on the issue of enforced or involuntary disappearance and remind governments to recognize, promote and protect their people's inherent and inviolable human rights. In so doing, our Federation will continue to empower its ranks of families of victims who, as living witnesses to this crime against humanity, are in the best position to champion the cause of the desaparecidos.

On this 59^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we pay tribute to all the desaparecidos of the world! They are physically absent, yet their spiritual presence is all the more pronounced especially TODAY. They are all here with us and with all organizations in different parts of the world who remember their beloved desaparecidos, whose historical memory shall never ever be forgotten. In our search for truth, for justice, for redress and for the recuperation of the historical memory, the desaparecidos continue to accompany us in this dark night of the disappeared and towards the realization of our direction to attain a world without desaparecidos.

Human Rights NOW! Families of the disappeared assert their right to truth.