Today is the last day of 2017. For four years now I have been waiting desperately for news of your whereabouts and your safe return. This time of the year should be a time for family gatherings to send off the old year and welcome the new. But for you and I, there is only longing and waiting.
For you, wherever you are, I hope and pray that you are well and in good health physically, emotionally and spiritually. I can only hope that your innate kindness, sincerity, and good humour can win you friends wherever you are and whoever you are with. I hope they will treat you well and will be won over by your humility, your wisdom, and your deep spirituality. I hope they will find your wide-ranging knowledge and skills useful to them and that they can benefit from your advice and service. I hope and hope that they will somehow find it in their hearts to see the kind of person you are, and they will one day set you free to come back to us. Continue reading “Dear Sombath…from Shui Meng (11)”
We know about North Korea as Asia’s most hardcore police state. The government enslaves and kills people who dispute the policies of leader Kim Jong-un.
Laos looks free and happy by contrast. Travelers can walk across the quiet, uncluttered capital Vientiane’s commercial-tourist district in an hour if that. A string of cafes near the riverside make French coffee. Slow-moving, smiling vendors are more likely to miscount change in your favor than cheat. The warm orange hues of Buddhist monks and temples radiate from streetsides. Westerners can get visas on arrival at the Vientiane airport. The idea of a police state would seldom occur to the interloper in Laos, though it’s a one-party Communist country.
Now try being a Laotian citizen with gripes about how things are run. Authorities in the country with a population of 7 million make some of Asia’s most chilling grabs of dissenters. Laos is better known for “disappearances” compared to putting people on trial after detention periods as practiced in communist China and Vietnam. And you never know when you might say something that disappears you, a deterrent to speaking out. Continue reading “See Who’s Asia’s No. 2 Police State After North Korea, And It’s Not China”
Human rights activists whose husbands are still missing years after they mysteriously vanished have urged the government to pass a law on preventing enforced disappearances, to address human rights violations.
Prominent human rights campaigner Angkhana Neelapaijit urged Thai authorities to enact the Torture and Enforced Disappearance Prevention and Suppression bill as quickly as possible, regardless of the fact that no missing persons case has been resolved.
The wife of Lao civil society leader Sombath Somphone is calling for judicial reforms in Laos and for the government clarify the fate of her husband, saying she will “never give up” in seeking the truth behind his disappearance.
Shui-Meng Ng, made the appeal as rights activists marked the fourth year since his enforced disappearance from a police checkpoint in the Laos capital of Vientiane in December 2012.
Human rights groups have renewed calls for a full investigation into the disappearance of a well-known community organiser four years ago at a police checkpoint in Vientiane.
More than 130 rights organisations from around the world issued a statement on Thursday calling on the Lao government to provide information about the fate of Sombath Somphone and 10 other activists who were detained or simply disappeared over the past decade.
Laos is a secretive one-party state whose Communist leaders have quashed political dissent since taking power in 1975.
Sombath went missing in the evening of Dec 15, 2012 on the busy streets of Vientiane. He was last seen getting into a police vehicle on that night.
Lao authorities have not re-examined the case despite a newly discovered security camera video of Sombath’s car on the day he disappeared and US pressure during a visit by President Barack Obama to the country in September.
(L-R) Rights activists Shui Meng Ng, Angkhana Neelapaijit, Pinnipa Preuksapan and Angkhana’s daughter Pratubjit Neelapaijit at a news conference in Bangkok, Thailand, December 19, 2017. Thomson Reuters Foundation/Alisa Tang
By Alisa Tang
BANGKOK, Dec 20 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The wives of three prominent Southeast Asian human rights campaigners who went missing after being detained by the authorities have united to urge Laos and Thailand to end impunity over forced disappearances.
All three women have become vocal critics of forced disappearances in a region where activists highlighting abuses over human, labour and land rights routinely face threats and violence. Some are gunned down, harassed through lawsuits, or simply “disappeared”.
“The biggest struggle is to get answers,” said Shui Meng Ng, whose husband Sombath Somphone, a Lao activist campaigning for rural development, went missing in December 2012.
Sombath Somphone and the Tragedy of Enforced Disappearances: A Press Conference and Interactive Dialogue was held at the FCCT in Bangkok, Thailand on 19 December 2016. Panelists included:
Pinnipa Preuksapan, wife of Pholachi “Billy” Rakchongcharoen, ethnic Karen land and rights activist
Angkhana Neelapaijit, Commissioner, National Human Rights Commission of Thailand, and wife of activist lawyer Somchai Neelapaijit
Shui-Meng Ng, wife of Sombath Somphone
The event was hosted by the Sombath Initiative moderated by Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch.
Shui-Meng Ng, left, Angkhana Neelapaijit and Pinnapa Preuksapan discuss details of their husbands’ disappearances, at a press conference in Bangkok, Dec. 19, 2016.
The wives of three men who disappeared under mysterious circumstances years ago – including a Thai lawyer who has been missing since March 2004 – appeared Monday before reporters in Bangkok to discuss their ongoing ordeals.
Angkhana Neelapaijit, the wife of lawyer Somchai Neelapaijit, joined Shui-Meng Ng and Pinnapa Preuksapan, the respective spouses of Laotian civil society leader Sombath Somphone and ethnic Karen activist Porlajee “Billy” Rakchongcharoen, for a news conference at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand.
Anne-Sophie Gindroz, ancienne directrice de Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation au Laos
Sombath Somphone en 2005. Il avait fondé l’ONG Padetc. Photo Bullit Marquez. AP
Fondateur d’une ONG de soutien aux paysans, le leader communautaire Sombath Somphone est porté disparu depuis quatre ans. Les autorités du Laos sont pointées du doigt pour leur autoritarisme et leur politique répressive.
Il y a quatre ans, le leader communautaire Sombath Somphone était enlevé devant un poste de police à Vientiane au Laos. C’était le 15 décembre 2012. Dans d’autres pays, la police lance généralement un appel au public pour rechercher la personne disparue. Pas au Laos où l’on vous intime de ne pas poser de questions. Dans d’autres pays, la police accueille favorablement toute aide. Pas au Laos où les offres d’assistance ont été systématiquement refusées. Dans d’autres pays, la population et les médias sont encouragés à diffuser l’information. Pas au Laos où les avis de recherche affichés ont été déchirés et la publication dans les journaux est soumise à autorisation spéciale. Continue reading “Face à l’impunité du régime laotien, ne nous taisons pas !”
(Bangkok) – The Lao government has made no progress accounting for civil society leader Sombath Somphone, who was forcibly disappeared on December 15, 2012, Human Rights Watch said today. Four years after he was stopped at a police checkpoint in the capital, Vientiane, the government needs to provide information on his fate or whereabouts.
“Since the start, the Lao government’s investigation of Sombath Somphone’s disappearance has been a pattern of delay, denial, and cover-up,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director. “Four years on, Sombath’s family is no closer to learning the truth about his fate than they were in the weeks after he went missing.”
A police closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera on the evening of his arrest shows police stopping Sombath’s jeep and leading him into the checkpoint. The footage shows unidentified individuals bringing Sombath out within minutes and putting him into another vehicle, which then drives away. Another individual later drives away in Sombath’s jeep.
Last December, Sombath’s family released new CCTV footage obtained from the same area as the police checkpoint that shows Sombath’s jeep being driven back to the center of Vientiane. At a minimum, this should have prompted a review of other CCTV cameras along the main route the car was taking back into the city.
There is no evidence of any serious government investigations into the enforced disappearance. Lao authorities have not organized a specific briefing on the status of the case for Sombath’s family since June 2013.
An enforced disappearance is defined under international law as the arrest or detention of a person by state officials or their agents followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty, or to reveal the person’s fate or whereabouts. Enforced disappearances inflict unbearable cruelty not just on the victims, but on family members, who often wait years or decades to learn of their fate. Under international law, “disappearances” are considered a continuing offense, one that is ongoing so long as the state conceals the fate or the whereabouts of the victim.
Laos signed the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance in September 2008, but has yet to ratify it. International donor agencies should press the government to ratify the treaty and adopt national legislation to implement its requirements.
The government’s continued failure to seriously investigate cases of enforced disappearance violates its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Laos is a party. The covenant states that governments must provide an “effective remedy” for violations of basic rights, including the right to liberty and security of person.
“Over decades of his work in grassroots rural development, Sombath inspired thousands of Lao farmers and their families with simple yet innovative techniques to help them farm better and live better,” Robertson said. “But today, Sombath’s uncertain fate prompts fear among Lao civil society groups that their survival is at the whim of the government.”
oday is the last day of 2017. For four years now I have been waiting desperately for news of your whereabouts and your safe return. This time of the year should be a time for family gatherings to send off the old year and welcome the new. But for you and I, there is only longing and waiting.
The wife of Lao civil society leader Sombath Somphone is calling for judicial reforms in Laos and for the government clarify the fate of her husband, saying she will “never give up” in seeking the truth behind his disappearance.
Human rights groups have renewed calls for a full investigation into the disappearance of a well-known community organiser four years ago at a police checkpoint in Vientiane.
