Amnesty International urges RP to ratify treaty

INTERNATIONAL human rights groups on Friday called on the Philippine government to join other nations in ratifying the treaty that would end enforced disappearances in the country and in the world.

Around 81 countries have already ratified the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, but the treaty has yet to be enforced.

Aurora Parong, section director of Amnesty International Philippines, said the treaty needs seven more ratifications to come into force.

The London-based Amnesty International said the treaty obliges states to hold any person involved in an enforced disappearance criminally responsible and to protect witnesses.

Parong said: “Enforced disappearance continues to be used by governments to silence dissent and eliminate political opponents, to persecute ethnic, religious and political groups, and as a tool of repression. Enforced disappearance is a crime that thrives on secrecy. It is designed to put its victims beyond the protection of the law, and to hide the identity of the perpetrators and the fate of the victims, many of whom are tortured or killed.”

In the Philippines, the Commission on Human Rights has documented 636 cases of involuntary disappearances since 1985.

“Enforced disappearance is a reality in the Philippines. Families of the disappeared continue to search and wait for relatives who they have not seen for several months or years. One such family is the James Balao family,” said Parong.

Indigenous rights activist James Balao was abducted in the northern city of Baguio on September 17, 2008 by armed men who told witnesses they were police.

The call of Amnesty International for ratification of the treaty coincides with the International Day of the Disappeared, which will be celebrated on Sunday.

Parong said the treaty “recognizes the families’ right to know the truth and to obtain reparations,” adding AI has hopes that the Philippines would be one of the states that will ratify the convention this year and take advantage of the UN General Assembly in New York this September to announce its ratification.

She said further: “[The treaty] requires states to prevent enforced disappearances by instituting stringent safeguards for people deprived of their liberty; to search for the disappeared person and, if they have died, to locate and return the body. The convention also requires states to prosecute alleged offenders present in their territory, regardless of where the crime was committed, or to extradite them to another state or surrender them to an international criminal court.”  –Ira Karen Apanay, Senior Reporter, Manila Times