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Remembering Sombath, One Year On

Samma-Ajiva Initiative

“A truly compassionate attitude toward others does not change even if they behave negatively or hurt you.” – H H Dalai Lama XIV 

601198_10152468618666982_1971263991_nOn 15th December 2013, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand (FCCT) hosted Sombath’s wife, Ng Shui-Meng, who spoke on her husband’s life and work. 2 other speakers, Pablo Solon and Evelyn Balais-Serrano joined Shui-Meng to mark the one year since he disappeared.

Sombath Sompone is a well-known and respected member of civil society in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Laos).  At around 5.30pm on 15th December 2012, he left in his car from his office in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. He was driving behind his wife Ng Shui-Meng, who was in another car. They were due to have dinner together at their home. But traffic’s police stopped Sombath at around 6pm at a police post on Thadeua Road, in Vientiane’s Sisattanak district. According to footage from a CCTV camera, he was stopped in his own vehicle by police, left it, and minutes later got into another vehicle and was driven off into darkness. He never made it home. Continue reading “Remembering Sombath, One Year On”

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Missing Lao NGO Leader's Wife Urges Pressure on Government

RFA: 12 December 2013

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Ng Shui Meng at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand in Bangkok, Dec. 11, 2013. RFA

The wife of missing Lao civil society leader Sombath Somphone pleaded with the international community to pressure the Lao government to speed up an investigation of his case ahead of the one-year anniversary of his disappearance on Sunday.

Sombath’s wife, Ng Shui Meng, said the Lao government claims to be investigating the case but has offered little information on the whereabouts of the 61-year-old civil society leader, who was last seen on December 15, 2012 being stopped in his vehicle at a police checkpoint in the Lao capital Vientiane.

“I’m hoping that ASEAN, [other countries in] Asia and the U.N.—actors that work to protect human rights—will help pressure the Lao government to look for Sombath as urgently as possible,” Ng, a Singaporean, told members of the media at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand in Bangkok on Wednesday. Continue reading “Missing Lao NGO Leader's Wife Urges Pressure on Government”

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Wife's fears for missing Lao activist

Bangkok Post: 12 December 2013

The wife of a missing Lao civil society leader Sombath Somphone has pleaded with the media to stop idolising him, saying the attention could be doing more harm than good.

“When you read what has been written in the press over the past 12 months, Mr Sombath is made to be like a super-Laotian,” Singaporean Ng Chui Meng said. “He’s not,” she told the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand late Wednesday, ahead of the anniversary of her husband’s disappearance in Vientiane on Dec 15, 2012.

“We understand that Sombath is already in very dire circumstances if he is still alive, and this is why I appeal to our media friends to be a little more circumspect of the real situation in Laos,” Ms Ng said.

Mr Sombath, 61, went missing after being detained at a police checkpoint outside the Lao capital, where CCTV images captured him leaving his own vehicle, then getting into a pickup truck and being driven away.

Laos’ communist regime has offered no explanation for Mr Sombath’s disappearance, suggesting it may have resulted from a personal dispute. Continue reading “Wife's fears for missing Lao activist”

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A year on, unanswered questions over Lao activist’s disappearance

Reuters Foundation: 12 December 2013

By Thin Lei WIn

Winners of the Ramon Magsaysay Awards pose for a photograph during a ceremony in Manila August 31, 2005. Sombath Somphone of Laos is on the left of the picture. Photo REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco
Winners of the Ramon Magsaysay Awards pose for a photograph during a ceremony in Manila August 31, 2005. Sombath Somphone of Laos is on the left of the picture. Photo REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco

BANGKOK – On the evening of Dec 15, 2012, Sombath Somphone, possibly Laos’ most prominent activist, left his office in the capital Vientiane and headed home for dinner. He never arrived.

Security camera footage obtained by his wife, Ng Shui Meng, showed police stopping his jeep at a police post and taking him inside. A motorcyclist drove up, stopped and drove away in Sombath’s jeep.

Later, a car with flashing lights stopped at the post. Two people got out, fetched Sombath from the police post and put him in their car, and drove off into the darkness. He has not been seen since.

Ng is still trying to find out what happened to her husband, winner of the 2005 Ramon Magsaysay Award for community leadership – the region’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize – and founder of the Participatory Development Training Centre (PADETC), and where he is.

“There were no warnings,” Ng told journalists in Bangkok on Wednesday night. Since Sombath, 60, disappeared, “a wall of silence has fallen in Vientiane and the rest of Laos,” she added.

Despite international pressure, the authoritarian government of poverty-stricken Laos has denied involvement in his disappearance but said nothing more. Continue reading “A year on, unanswered questions over Lao activist’s disappearance”

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Wife of missing Lao community leader pleads against hero-worship

The Nation: 12 December 2013

The wife of a missing Lao civil society leader Sombath Somphone has pleaded with the media to stop idolising him, saying the attention could be doing more harm than good.

“When you read what has been written in the press over the past 12 months, Sombath is made to be like a super-Laotian,” Singaporean Ng Chui Meng said.

“He’s not,” she told the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand late Wednesday, ahead of the anniversary of her husband’s disappearance in Vientiane on December 15, 2012.

“We understand that Sombath is already in very dire circumstances if he is still alive, and this is why I appeal to our media friends to be a little more circumspect of the real situation in Laos,” Ng said.

Sombath, 61, went missing after being detained at a police checkpoint outside the Lao capital, where CCTV images captured him leaving his own vehicle, then getting into a pickup truck and being driven away.

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Japan’s PM Urged to Raise Case of Missing Lao NGO Leader

Radio Free Asia: 11 December 2013

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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Lao counterpart Thongsing Thammavong shake hands at an ASEAN meeting in Brunei, Oct. 9, 2013. AFP

Rights groups have asked Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to raise concerns about disappeared Lao civil society leader Sombath Somphone at an upcoming regional summit, saying Tokyo and other international donors should push for an independent probe if Laos continues to drag its feet on the case.

Abe should urge his Lao counterpart Thongsing Thammavong, who will visit Tokyo this weekend for the Japan-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit, to ensure the government fully investigates the case and provides information about Sombath’s fate, the six international rights groups said in a joint letter Wednesday.

The summit falls on the one-year anniversary of the disappearance of Sombath, a prominent anti-poverty campaigner who was last seen being stopped at a police checkpoint in the Lao capital Vientiane on Dec. 15, 2012.

Since then, rights groups have expressed dissatisfaction with the Lao government’s explanation of how he vanished, saying it has failed to fully investigate the case and could be covering up government links to his possible abduction.

The letter by the six groups—Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International Japan, Mekong Watch, Empowerment For All Japan, and two organizations that requested not to be named publicly—asked Abe to “remind” Thongsing that Laos is obligated under international human rights law to prevent and remedy any enforced disappearance. Continue reading “Japan’s PM Urged to Raise Case of Missing Lao NGO Leader”

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Japan: Raise Concerns About Abducted Lao Activist

Human Rights Watch: 11 December 2013

中国语文 Langue française

One Year On, Sombath Somphone Remains Forcibly Disappeared

Screen Shot 2013-02-20 at 9.39.28 AM“On the one-year anniversary of Sombath Somphone’s abduction, Prime Minister Abe should break Japan’s public silence and call upon the Lao government to reveal the truth about Sombath’s fate. Japan’s words carry weight since it is the largest donor to Laos. Prime Minister Abe should use this leverage to send a strong message to the Lao leadership that it needs to stop ignoring the pleas to reveal what happened to Sombath.” Kanae Doi, Japan director

(Tokyo) – Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan should raise concerns about the enforced disappearance of a prominent civil society leader in the prime minister’s meeting  with Lao Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong at the Japan-Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International Japan, Mekong Watch, Empowerment For All Japan, and two other Japanese nongovernmental organizations said today in a joint letter to Prime Minister Abe.

The Japan-ASEAN Summit, scheduled from December 13-15, 2013, falls during the one-year anniversary of the abduction and forcible disappearance of Sombath Somphone, a recipient of the 2005 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership. Sombath was taken into custody by authorities at a checkpoint outside a police station in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, on December 15, 2012. Continue reading “Japan: Raise Concerns About Abducted Lao Activist”

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Amnesty calls for Urgent Action

Amnesty_InternationalAmnesty International has issued a further Urgent Action, calling on its global membership to:

…write immediately in Lao, English or your own language calling on the Lao authorities to:

  • Immediately establish a new, independent commission to undertake a thorough and impartial investigation into the enforced disappearance of Sombath Somphone, and ensure that all steps are taken to locate and return him safely to his family as soon as possible, in accordance with Laos’ obligations under international law;
  • Ensure that this new commission seeks technical assistance for its investigations, including established experts to carry out a forensics analysis of the CCTV footage of the disappearance;
  • Frequently provide detailed information about the progress of the investigations to Sombath’s family, lawyers and others with a legitimate interest.

The full appeal with contact details can be found here.  Deutsch Sprache