Asian Federation Against 
What's Happening
Keep the Faith! We are with you in Seeking Justice for your Disappeared Loved Ones!
On the 23rd anniversary of the Day of Disappearances at the Monument of the Disappeared in Colombo, Sri Lanka, the Secretary-General of the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD), Mary Aileen Bacalso, calls on the families of the disappeared to “keep the faith and persist in the struggle for justice of their loved ones.”
Ms. Bacalso lauds the women, men and children who are gathered today at the Monument of the Disappeared for their steadfastness to seek justice even under an increasingly repressive government. “We know how difficult your situation is, because you are confronted not only with the economic and psycho-emotional effects of the disappearance of your loved ones, but also the increasing repression of human rights under the present Rajapaksa government. making you vulnerable to arrest, detention and also enforced disappearance in the course of finding justice,” Ms. Bacalso adds.
AFAD statement: Appeal Regarding the Case of Adil Khan, Odhikar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVjZDjTJYrM
Shot by: Candy Diez
Edited by: Mark King Baco
Survivors and Families of Victims of Enforced Disappearances Look Forward to Indonesia’s Ratification of the International Convention From Enforced Disappearance to end impunity!
Families of victims of enforced disappearances, through the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) laud the Indonesian Parliament for the current deliberations towards ratifying the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (Convention).
"Now that the Convention is being deliberated in the Parliament, I hope that it will not take a long time, because it was even the Parliament that recommended the government in September 2009 to ratify the Convention as soon as possible. The ratification of the Convention will provide legal protection for every citizen from heinous crimes of enforced disappearances in the future," Mugiyanto, the Chairperson of AFAD and IKOHI (an organization of survivors and families of victims), himself a survivor of disappearances in Indonesia in 1998 says.
Bring Home Cao Shunli and Uphold Freedom of Expression in China
The Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) calls on the government of the People’s Republic of China to immediately surface Cao Shunli, legal rights activist who was barred by authorities to board her plane to Geneva on the 14 September 2013. She was supposed to attend a UN-sponsored international human rights training as well as participate in the Universal Periodic Review of China scheduled on 22 October.
Cao Shunli’s case is a clear example of enforced disappearance, a violation of the United Nations International Convention for the Protection of All Persons From Enforced Disappearance (ICPAPED). As defined in Article 2 of the Convention, the crime of enforced disappearance happens when a person is arrested, detained, abducted or subjected to other forms of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State followed by a refusal to acknowledge the concealment or whereabouts of the disappeared person, placing the person outside the protection of the law.
