HRC48: Oral statement during ID with the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances

Item 3:Interactive Dialogue with the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances

Organisation: Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW)

Speaker:Claire Denman

Thank you, Madame President,

CSW welcomes the report of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.

We fully share the concerns expressed in the report regarding the enforced or involuntary disappearance of minorities, activists, journalists, human rights defenders and political prisoners.

CSW is particularly concerned by the acts of intimidation towards the families and lawyers of persons deprived of liberty in China.

As the report notes families should be protected from ill treatment and intimidation, precise information should be made available to their family members, to their counsel or to any other persons having a legitimate interest in the information.

Yet, in the case of the human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng this has not been done. His whereabouts are unknown, and his family has suffered from his disappearance.

CSW remains convinced that with the deteriorating human rights situation in China, the international community should take action to ensure families of detainees are informed of their condition and whereabouts.

Regarding Mexico, CSW is concerned by the abduction and enforced disappearance of Protestant Pastor Aarón Méndez Ruiz and his co-worker Alfredo Castillo de Luna by an organised criminal group on 3 August 2019.

Despite the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights’ call to the Mexican government[1] to detail the measures taken to locate these men, no progress has been made and the perpetrators remain unpunished.

We urge the Mexican government to provide protection to church leaders who are under threat from illegal armed groups, to fully disclose the measures they have taken to find Pastor Aarón Méndez Ruiz and Alfredo Castillo de Luna, and to address impunity for such violations.

Thank you.

[1] Comisión InterAmericana de Derechos Humanos Resolución 51/2019, Medida Cautelar No. 870-19 Aaron Casimiro Méndez Ruíz y Alfredo Castillo, Respecto de México, 4 de Octubre de 2019, https://www.oas.org/es/cidh/decisiones/pdf/2019/51-19MC870-19-MX.pdf