We Remember President, ICAED Steering Committee member Irina Krasovskaya attended an international conference on the issue of enforced disappearances in Geneva, Switzerland.

The International Coalition Against Enforced Disappearances (ICAED) gathered its 40 member-organizations from Africa, Eurasian Region (Euro-Mediterranean Region, Caucasus and Belarus), Latin America and Asia and the United States and international observers in an international conference on 7-9 November 2011 in Geneva, Switzerland. The theme of the conference was LINKING OUR SOLIDARITY: Strengthen our Unity; Renew our Commitment Towards the Ratification of the International Treaty Against Enforced Disappearances.

The first to be organized since the signing of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (or the Convention) in 2007, the Conference served as a venue for Coalition members to meet and update on local situation on enforced disappearances and on their campaign for the signing of the Convention. It also aimed at keeping track of the global developments on enforced disappearances and come up with a two or three-year program of action vis-a-vis the continuing advocacy for the ratification of the Convention and for addressing the struggle of families of the disappeared.

A Side Event entitled: “Universal Implementation of the Convention: A Task and A Challenge” was held on 9 November in Palais des Nations. It was aimed to give further global visibility at the UN level to the Coalition’s continuing campaign for more signatures to and ratifications of the Convention. The panel of speakers was composed of Chair of the UN WGEID, Mr. Jeremy Sarkin; French Expert of the Committee on Enforced Disappearances, Mr. Emmanuel Decaux and First Secretary of the Permanent Mission of Argentina to the UN in Geneva, Mr. Sebastian Rosales.

Irina Krasovskaya in her speech talked about the involuntary disappearances in Belarus in 1999-200, about the denial of the state to openly investigate the cases of the disappearances, about the recent human rights violations in Belarus including detention of the candidates for the presidency Andrei Sannikov and Nikolai Statkevich, tortures of Dmitry Dashkevich, Ales Mikhalevich and other political prisoners, about arrest of famous human rights defender Ales Byalyatski.

Established in 2007, the ICAED through its campaign, lobbying and public information and dissemination work in many countries at the national, regional and international levels has been contributing to a large measure to what has been achieved so far. The following member-organizations form part of the current Steering Committee of the ICAED: Amnesty International (AI); Asian Federation Against involuntary Disappearances (AFAD); Collectif des Families De Disparus en Algerie (CFDA); FEDEFAM; FEMED; Federation Internationale de l’ACAT/ International Federation of Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture (FIACAT); Federation Internationale des Droits de l’Homme (FIDH); Human Rights Watch (HRW); International Committee for Justice (ICJ); and We Remember-Belarus.

The conference documents:

Statement of the International Coalition Against Enforced Disappearances
to the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances

Statement of the International Coalition Against Enforced Disappearances for the United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances

ICAED statement on the occasion of International Conference on Enforced Disappearances