The Solidarity for Asian People’s Advocacy (SAPA) working group for ASEAN released a message during an event held in front of the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs on April 12th. The statement calls on the leaders of ASEAN to put enforced disappearances on the agenda of their upcoming summit:
On April 24 and 25, these ASEAN leaders will gather in Brunei under the theme of “Our People, Our Future Together.” But how can we invest our future in an ASEAN where peoples’ basic rights are continuously ignored and violated, a community where people are abducted and forced to disappear? We cannot be part of this. If ASEAN wants us to be part of this community then they should put the interests of the people above everything else. They should respect and uphold basic human rights.
The entire statement can be read here. A related letter from the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances to the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs can be read here. A video of the event can be seen here.
The event was organized by Focus on the Global South, Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD), and Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearances (FIND).
Magsaysay Award winner Sombath Somphone with his Singapore wife Ng Shui Meng. Mr Sombath disappeared in the Laotian capital of Vientiane four months ago. — PHOTO: COURTESY OF NG SHUI MENG
A WALL of silence has risen over the disappearance of Magsaysay Award winner Sombath Somphone in Laos four months ago.
His wife, Singaporean national Ng Shui Meng, is exhausted but still not contemplating leaving Laos, the couple’s home for more than 30 years.
“Sometimes I feel this has to be a (bad) dream, a nightmare,” she says. “I stay because there is still some hope.”
Madam Ng was on the way back to Singapore for a break and on a brief stopover in Bangkok yesterday where she had an emotional meeting with Mrs Angkhana Neelapaijit. Her husband – Thai human rights lawyer Somchai Neelapaijit – disappeared under similar circumstances in the Thai capital in 2004.
“I know what Shui Meng is going through,” Mrs Angkhana told The Straits Times. “It’s an emotional seesaw driven by rumours. One day you hear from someone that your husband is alive. The next day you hear that his body has been found.”
Neither man has been found – alive or dead.
Mr Sombath’s abduction may have been triggered by his role in coordinating the Asia-Europe People’s Forum in Vientiane in October last year, where the Laos government came under some criticism. Continue reading “Missing activist's case losing prominence”
วิฑูรย์ เพิ่มพงศาเจริญ-อังคณา นีละไพจิตร-ประทับจิต นีละไพจิตร