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สิทธิมนุษยชนอาเซียนอยู่ไหน เมื่อคนเห็นต่างจากรัฐถูกอุ้มหาย…

สำนักข่าวอิศรา: 15 ธันวาคม 2013

131256จากวันที่ “สมบัด สมพอน” นักพัฒนาอาวุโสชาวลาว ได้หายตัวไปจากกรุงเวียงจันทร์ เมื่อวันที่ 15 ธันวาคม 2555 ก็ล่วงเวลามา 1 ปีแล้ว ที่เราต่างเชื่อกันว่า เขาเป็นเหยื่ออีกหนึ่งรายที่ถูกบังคับให้หายสาบสูญไปโดยน้ำมือของเจ้า หน้าที่รัฐ เฉกเช่นเดียวกับนายสมชาย นีละไพจิตร นักกฎหมายและทนายความด้านสิทธิมนุษยชน ผู้ถูกบังคับหายไปจากประเทศไทย เมื่อวันที่ 12 มีนาคม 2547 หรือเมื่อ 10 ปีที่แล้วนั้นเอง

การถูกบังคับให้หายตัวไปของผู้ทำคุณประโยชน์ให้กับสังคมทั้ง 2 ราย ถือเป็นการถูกละเมิดสิทธิมนุษยชนจากคนของรัฐ เพียงเพราะพวกเขาทำงานเพื่อประชาชนที่ถูกเอารัดเอาเปรียบ อีกทั้งครอบครัวผู้สูญหายยังต้องเผชิญกับการเพิกเฉยจากรัฐในการติดตามผู้ กระทำความผิดมาลงโทษ ซึ่งขัดต่อหลักปฏิญญาสากลว่าด้วยสิทธิมนุษยชน

พันธมิตรองค์กรภาคประชาสังคมต่าง ๆ มองเห็นปัญหาที่อนาคตจะมีการเปิดการค้าเสรีอาเซียน และตั้งคำถามกับกระบวนการยุติธรรมของไทยและลาวที่ล้วนแต่เป็นสมาชิกสมาคม อาเซียน และไม่ต้องการให้รัฐมุ่งหน้าเพียงการพัฒนาเศรษฐกิจให้ก้าวไกล และปล่อยให้ปัญหาการละเมิดสิทธิมนุษยชนขยายตัวเพิ่มมากขึ้น จึงให้มีการจัดงานเสวนาเพื่อเรียกร้องให้รัฐดำเนินการในกระบวนการยุติธรรม ที่ถูกต้อง Continue reading “สิทธิมนุษยชนอาเซียนอยู่ไหน เมื่อคนเห็นต่างจากรัฐถูกอุ้มหาย…”

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Questions remain over missing Laos leader

Al Jazeera: 15 December 2013

Sombath Somphone disappeared a year ago after police stopped him, but officials remain silent on his fate.

Sombath Somphone
Sombath Somphone received the Ramon Magsaysay award for community leadership in 2005 [AP]
For a year now Ng Shui Meng has been waiting for news of her husband, Sombath Somphone, who was abducted from a police post at a busy traffic junction in the Laotian capital Vientiane last December – and hasn’t been seen since.

The case of 61-year-old Sombath, described as “farmer, scholar, scientist and community developer” by one of the groups he founded, has been taken up by the United States and Europe, but Laos’ Communist-led government has maintained an almost complete silence.

Ng says since the police told her they were investigating the disappearance, she’s heard little more. Continue reading “Questions remain over missing Laos leader”

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ICJ calls on Lao government

icj_logoThe International Commission of Jurists has renewed its call to the Lao courts to open a case regarding Sombath Somphone:

It is deplorable that one year after Sombath Somphone was abducted after being stopped by traffic police, the public prosecutor has yet to institute formal or criminal proceedings into his disappearance.

The government of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic must immediately take effective measure to ensure an impartial and thorough investigation and bring justice to those responsible for crimes against Sombath Somphone.

Sam Zarifi, ICJ Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific. The full announcement can be seen here.

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Laos human rights chill a year after activist's disappearance

Reuters: 14 December 2013

By Aubrey Belford

Dec 14 (Reuters) – The last sign of Sombath Somphone, the most famous social activist in Laos, is a blurry video taken on a Vientiane street.

The video shows Sombath, 61, being stopped at a police post on Dec. 15 last year. He is seen being led into a pickup truck, which then drives off screen and disappears.

A year on, rights groups and Western governments are calling for Laos to fully investigate Sombath’s disappearance, which Amnesty International says reeks of an official cover-up. The case has become a headache for the Communist country as it seeks international respectability and to open its economy.

The landlocked, impoverished country has experienced economic growth of more than 8 percent in recent years.

It is seeking to become the “battery of Southeast Asia” by exporting electricity from hydropower plants, but it has come under criticism for environmental destruction, land grabs and wasteful resource exploitation.

Now a deep freeze has descended on a tiny civil society that has tried to bring more openness to the tightly controlled state that has little tolerance for dissent. Continue reading “Laos human rights chill a year after activist's disappearance”

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Nhà hoạt động Lào, Sombath Somphone mất tích đã một năm

Radio Free Asia: 14 Tháng 12 năm 2013

Hôm nay (15/12) là đúng một năm ngày nhà hoạt động nổi tiếng Lào, Sombath Somphone, bị mất tích. Dấu tích được ghi lại là một băng video cho thấy cảnh mờ mờ ông này bị bắt trên một đường phố ở thủ đô Vientiane của Lào.

Theo video đó thì ông Sombath Somphone, 61 tuổi, khi đang trên đường về nhà vào khoảng 6 giờ chiều bị buộc dừng lại tại một trạm cảnh sát, có hai người kèm đưa ông này đưa lên xe tải nhỏ và xe chạy đi. Từ đó đến nay ông này hoàn toàn mất tích.

Trong thời gian một năm qua, các tổ chức theo dõi nhân quyền và nhiều chính quyền Phương Tây kêu gọi chính phủ Lào phải tiến hành điều tra đầy đủ về sự mất tích của nhà hoạt động nổi tiếng này tại Lào. Cơ quan chức năng Lào vẫn im tiếng trước yêu cầu đó.

Phó giám đốc khu vực Châu Á của tổ chức theo dõi nhân quyền Human Rights Watch, ông Phil Robertson, lên tiếng cho rằng những chế độ đàn áp có cách thức riêng để đối phó với những nhà bất đồng chính kiến. Tại Lào, họ bị mất tích mà không để lại dấu vết gì.

Lào là một trong năm quốc gia độc đảng còn sót lại trên toàn thế giới. Bản thân ông Sombath Somphone không phải là một nhà bất đồng chính kiến cực đoan, ông là một chuyên gia về nông nghiệp được nhiều người biết đến về những hoạt động thúc đẩy phát triển bền vững tại những vùng nông thôn nghèo khó của đất nước Lào.

Hoạt động cuối cùng trước khi bị bắt mất tích của ông Sombath Somphone là giúp tổ chức Diễn đàn Nhân dân Á- Âu hồi tháng 10 vừa qua.

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The Sombath crisis has implications for Asean

Bangkok Post: 14 December 2103

International groups say Laos is struggling to explain the disappearance of the civil rights activist.

It reads like fiction straight from a Colin Cotterill novel. The setting is Vientiane, capital city of the People’s Democratic Republic of Laos.

Sombath Somphone is a gentle and unassuming man aged 63. Married to a Singaporean, Dr Ng Shui Meng, a former senior Unicef official, Mr Sombath was conferred the prestigious Magsaysay Award for Community Development – the region’s equivalent of the Nobel Peace Prize – in 2005. He spent the majority of his career in Laos, his native home, working with farmers and youths to promote a form of development that was mindful of the country’s values.

A group of Thai and Lao activists rally in Bangkok in January to pressure Lao authorities to speed up their probe into the disappearance of Sombath Somphone. CHANAT KATANYU
A group of Thai and Lao activists rally in Bangkok in January to pressure Lao authorities to speed up their probe into the disappearance of Sombath Somphone. CHANAT KATANYU

On Dec 15, 2012, Mr Sombath disappeared into thin air. Alone in his jeep, he was driving to his home in Vientiane. His family were in the car in front of him. Mr Sombath was stopped at a police checkpoint.Shortly afterwards, he was escorted away in another vehicle. Then his jeep was driven away.

The events were captured on a grainy CCTV video but poor picture quality makes it difficult to ascertain exactly who was filmed. Mr Sombath’s “offence” has been neither revealed nor acknowledged, yet he has not been seen since. All his family wants to know is whether he is alive. Continue reading “The Sombath crisis has implications for Asean”

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Year-long silence on Sombath deafening

Bangkok Post: 14 December 2013

A year ago, Ng Shui-Meng watched a closed-circuit police video in disbelief as it revealed the moment her husband, the most prominent civil rights advocate in Laos, disappeared.

It shows Sombath Somphone being stopped by traffic police on his way home around 6pm on Dec 15, 2012. A man in a black windbreaker emerges from the police post and drives his car away. Two other men then escort the 61-year-old activist into a pickup truck.

Sombath Somphone and his wife Shui-Meng pose for a photograph during a holiday trip in Bali in 2005.

His wife, who obtained the video a day after his disappearance, still doesn’t know what happened next.

The apparent abduction has sent a chilling message to the country’s already fragile civil society, and exposed Laos as one of Asia’s most repressive societies rather than the languid land of smiles of backpacker blogs and tourism boosters.

The media in Laos are under total state control, security watchdogs operate down to the grassroots and foreign human-rights organisations are banned. The communist government responds to even the small and peaceful public protests which periodically surface with swift suppression and arrests.

The country of 6.5 million is not known to have gulags or a large number of political prisoners. Dissidents and rights activists say quiet but sharp injections of fear impose silence and self-censorship on a largely apolitical population.

“Every repressive regime has its own way of dealing with dissidents. In Laos, they disappear people without a trace,” said Phil Robertson, the Bangkok-based deputy director of Human Rights Watch Asia. Continue reading “Year-long silence on Sombath deafening”

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Interview: 'All That Matters Is Sombath Be Found Quickly And Returned Safely'

Radio Free Asia: 13 December 2013

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Ng Shui Meng at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand in Bangkok, Dec. 11, 2013. RFA

Ahead of the first anniversary of Lao NGO leader Sombath Somphone’s disappearance on Dec. 15, 2012, his wife Ng Shui Meng, in an interview with RFA’s Lao Service, looks back to the day he went missing and says that believing he will come home is what gives her the strength to go on:

Q: Can you share with us what progress has been made in the search for Sombath Somphone?

A: The police said the investigation is ongoing, but I have no knowledge of what they are doing to conduct the investigation. Nor have the police kept us informed. They just said to trust them.

Q: Could you walk us back to what happened on  Dec. 15? Start at the very beginning. What do you remember about that day? What were you doing? Where were you when you parted company? What was the last thing you said to one another? When did you start to get worried? What did you do? Who did you call for help? How did they respond?

A: Dec. 15, 2012 was a Saturday. I had a meeting with a friend earlier in the day and I took the car. Sombath had no appointment and said he did not need to go anywhere, except for his usual ping-pong game which he plays regularly with his ping-pong teacher at the PADETC [Participatory Development Training Centre] office. He said not to worry, as he could take his old jeep to go to play ping-pong later in the afternoon. Continue reading “Interview: 'All That Matters Is Sombath Be Found Quickly And Returned Safely'”

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Action in front of the Lao embassy in Tokyo

政府批判の許されないラオスで社会活動家が失踪〜大使館前で人権NGOが抗議のアピール

Independent Web Journal: 13 December 2013

(Please click on link above for article in Japanese, as well as a video.)

Tokyo EmbassyIn response to a call from Japanese rights groups, Human Rights Watch and the Amnesty International Japan, around 20 citizens gathered in front of the Laos Embassy in Tokyo on Friday, December 13, 2013. They called out “Return Sombath!” and read out a letter addressed to Lao’s Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong, urging his government’s prompt, transparent, and thorough investigation on the abduction and disappearance of Sombath Somphone. The action was to anticipate the Japan-ASEAN Summit held in Tokyo on December 13-15, to which the Lao government had also been invited. Despite the prior notice of the action and bell rings at the door, there was no response from the embassy side. Hence, the letter was put in their mail box.

The same groups also sent a letter to Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, asking him to urge the Lao government to take an immediate action on the matter.

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NGOs speak out

We, the undersigned 62 regional and international organizations, express outrage over the Lao Government’s ongoing failure to shed light on the enforced disappearance of prominent activist and civil society leader Sombath Somphone.

62 Non-governmental organizations have released a statement calling for a new investigation into the enforced disappearance of Sombath Somphone.

Signatories include NGOs from all ASEAN countries, except Brunei and Laos. The full statement is available in English here, and in Chinese here.