International Day of the Disappeared marked today
International Day
of the Disappeared is marked by the world community on August 30. The date appeared
in the United Nations’ calendar in 2011.
In 2010, the UN called on its institutions, as well as other international and
regional organizations and civil society to begin celebrating this day,
recognizing the global scale of the crime, which is reflected in the annual
reports of the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. The UN
General Assembly Resolution, which proclaimed the International Day of the
Disappeared, expressed grave concern, in particular over the increase in enforced
disappearances in various regions of the world and the number of reports
concerning harassment, ill-treatment and intimidation of witnesses of
disappearances or relatives of disappeared persons.
Enforced disappearances used to be associated only with military dictatorships.
Today, they can occur in difficult situations of internal conflicts, especially
as a means of political repression of opponents.
Of particular concern to the United Nations on this issue are:
- continuous harassment of human rights defenders and relatives of victims,
witnesses and lawyers dealing with cases of enforced disappearances;
- the governments’ use of anti-terrorism means as an excuse for the violation
of their obligations;
- ongoing common practice of impunity for enforced disappearances.
Left without the protection of the law and "disappeared" to society,
people are actually deprived of all rights and are completely at the mercy of
their captors. With the disappearance of an individual, the following rights
are violated:
- the right to recognition before the law;
- the right to liberty and security of person;
- the right not to be subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment or punishment;
- the right to life, if the missing person is killed;
- the right to an identity;
- the right to a fair trial and to judicial guarantees;
- the right to an effective remedy, including compensation and reparations;
- the right to know the truth about the circumstances of the disappearance.
Disappearances are also usually associated with violations of various economic,
social and cultural rights:
- the right to protection of the family and assistance;
- the right to an adequate standard of living;
- the right to health;
- the right to education.
The Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances was established in
1980 by the UN Human Rights Commission. It is composed of five experts. They
consider the reports of missing people, sent by their relatives or human rights
organizations. Making sure that the messages meet a number of criteria, the
Working Group transmits materials about specific cases to the authorities of
the countries concerned and makes a request for an investigation.
The basic document on this issue is the International Convention for the Protection
of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. Adopted by the UN in 2006, the
Convention entered into force on 23 December 2010, when the number of
participating countries reached 20. The purpose of the Convention is to prevent
enforced disappearances, which are defined in Article 2 as follows: "the arrest, detention, abduction or
any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons
or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of
the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or
by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which
place such a person outside the protection of the law".
To monitor the implementation of the Convention on 31 May 2011 the UN
established the Committee on Enforced Disappearances. The Committee members are
elected for four years, renewable once by voting. The voting involved countries
that have ratified the Convention. Under the Convention, the Committee members
must be representatives of the countries that have ratified the document. As a
result of the vote, the Committee included representatives of Iraq, France,
Uruguay, Argentina, Germany,
Albania, Spain, Zambia
and Zimbabwe.
As of today, 91 countries have signed the Convention, 34 countries have
ratified or acceded to the Treaty. Belarus is not on the list of these
countries.
And yet, the problem of enforced disappearances in Belarus is
topical. In 1999, the country lost without a trace two prominent opposition
members – former Interior Minister Yury Zakharanka and vice-chairman of the
Supreme Council of the 13th convocation Viktar Hanchar, as well as
businessman Anatol Krasouski. All these people have one thing in common: they
were open opponents of the Lukashenka regime. In the summer of 2000 Lukashenka’s
former personal cameraman Dzmitry Zavadski disappeared. The fate of Zakharanka,
Hanchar, Krasouski and Zavadski is still not known by their families.
According to human rights defenders, the investigation of the cases of
political disappearances have been blocked by the country's leadership and the
cases can reach the court only after the change of power in Belarus.
