Home
Major step toward ending enforced disappearance
30-09-2005 News Release 05/72
The ICRC welcomes the news that drafting of a convention protecting people from enforced disappearance was completed on 23 September by the Working Group to elaborate a draft legally binding normative instrument for the protection of all persons from enforced disappearance.
This marks significant progress in efforts to prevent the practice world-wide. The ICRC congratulates the States and others – including representatives of families of people who have disappeared – that took part in negotiations to finalize the draft.
The ICRC considers it imperative that everything possible be done to throw light on what has happened to persons reported missing in connection with armed conflict or other situations of violence and whose whereabouts remain unknown to their families. In particular, persons deprived of their freedom must be allowed to communicate with their families. No matter how legitimate the grounds for detention, no one has the right to conceal a person's whereabouts, to keep secret whether someone is alive or dead, or to deny that he or she is being detained. Doing so runs counter to the basic tenets of international humanitarian law and human rights law.
Preventing enforced disappearances is one of the key aims of ICRC visits to people detained in connection with armed conflict or other situations of violence. In 2004 the organization saw some 571,000 detainees in over 2,400 places of detention in nearly 80 countries. When it visits detainees, the ICRC registers them so that it can keep track of them individually. It also speaks in private with detainees about their conditions of detention. For many detainees, these regular visits are the only contact with the outside world.
For further information, please contact:
Antonella Notari, ICRC Geneva, tel. +41 22 730 22 82 / +41 79 217 32 80
Florian Westphal, ICRC Geneva, tel. +41 22 730 29 30 / +41 79 217 32 26
-
Share
|
Back to top
