30 August 2024
Today, 30 August, which marks the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, I am thinking of all the human rights defenders (HRDs) who have been subjected to this most cruel and callous crime in retaliation for their work.
Enforced disappearance is used not only to silence human rights defenders, but to spread fear among their families and the communities they stand in solidarity with.
Human rights defenders working to locate people who have been forcibly disappeared, including family members, are also violently targeted, as those who have perpetrated disappearances seek to ensure impunity for their crimes.
Since I took up my mandate in May 2020, I have sent numerous communications to Governments about the enforced disappearance of HRDs. One trend that has emerged is the use of enforced disappearance against environmental human rights defenders, in particular those from indigenous and peasant communities.
I have sent communications on the enforced disappearance of Garifuna HRDs from the coastal community of Triunfo de la Cruz in Honduras; of peasant leaders in the Philippines and Nicaragua; of Ricardo Lagunes and Antonio Diaz, who had been defending rights connected to land in the context of mining in Mexico, and Sombath Somphone, disappeared in Lao since 2012.
Civil society, communities and family members around the world continue to search for information as to the fate and whereabouts of defenders and others who have been forcibly disappeared. They themselves are human rights defenders, and I am calling on States to do all they can to support and protect them, and to immediately disclose the whereabouts of any person subject to enforced disappearance under their control.