AFAD 25 Years Video Teaser

This AFAD video teaser is an opening salvo of the yearlong campaign and fight Against Enforced Disappearances and for the Protection, not Persecution, of Human Rights Defenders, across Asia.

a continuing crime
a disappearing act

What's Happening

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Regent Hotel, Munich, Germany -- First and foremost, in the name of the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD), which is the focal point of the International Coalition Against Enforced Disappearances (ICAED), I would like to thank the World Uygur Congress, the Society for Threatened Peoples, the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples’ Organizations and the National Endowment for Democracy for inviting me to this conference.  Amidst the many tasks at hand, in the spirit of solidarity, we were honored to accept the invitation.  To be honest, the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD), a federation of organizations working directly on the issue of enforced disappearances, owing to its limited resources, still has to know more about enforced disappearances of Uyghur people.  Our participation in this conference is hopefully a beginning of a more profound solidarity with the Uyghur people in the years to come.

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The 2nd ICAED General Membership Conference Geneva, Switzerland, 24 – 27 March 2014

We, human rights organizations from

Belarus, Cyprus, Indonesia, Morocco, Philippines, Switzerland, Western Sahara, including the online participation of organizations from France, El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru, Thailand, Uruguay, gather here in Geneva, Switzerland during the last week of the 25th session of the UN Human Rights Council in the spirit of international solidarity to step up our global campaign for the universal ratification and full implementation of the UN Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

The International Coalition Against Enforced Disappearances (ICAED), whose members from various countries are now meeting in Geneva, calls on the United Nations Human Rights Council to address the intensifying government attacks against human rights defenders in Bangladesh. These take the form of arbitrary arrests and detentions of targeted personalities critical of the government’s human rights performance.

On 11 April 2013, State authorities shut down the operations of Bangladeshi newspaper, Daily Amardesh, seized its computers, and arrested its interim editor, Mr. Mahmudur Rahman. He published a transcript of a Skype conversation between former International Crimes Tribunal Chairman, Justice Muhammad Nizamul Huq, and a Bangladeshi legal expert, Ahmed Ziauddin that, according to reports, appeared to have casted doubt on the independence of the International Crimes Tribunal. The government used provisions in the Information and Communications Technology Act 2006 (ICT) to justify its actions.

The landmark in addressing the case of enforced disappearances has been made by Indonesia when in September 2009, the Indonesian Parliament (DPR) issued a recommendation to the Government, including to the President of the country related to the cases of disappearances of 23 pro-democracy activists that happened in 1997-1998, namely:

  • The establishment of Ad Hoc Human Rights Court;

  • The search of the 13 still disappeared activists;

  • The delivery of the rights to compensation and rehabilitation to the families of victims, and;

  • The ratification of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances.

The Federation

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