International Day of the Disappeared in Sheffield

In Sheffield on 30th August at 4.30 pm we will be assembling in front of Sheffield Town Hall to remember victims of enforced disappearance from around the world. 

Aug. 30, is the International Day of the Disappeared, observed by Amnesty International and other human rights groups around the word to remember the disappeared and to press for justice for the victims of enforced disappearance and their families. An “enforced disappearance” occurs when agents of the state arrest a person and the state then denies any knowledge of the person’s status or whereabouts. 

You could be taken at any time, day or night. You might be at home, at work or traveling on the street. Your captors may be in uniform or civilian clothes. They forcibly take you away, giving no reason, producing no warrant. Your relatives desperately try to find you, going from one police station or army camp to the next. The officials deny having arrested you or knowing anything about your whereabouts or fate. You have become a victim of enforced disappearance

Enforced disappearance is a grave human rights violation and a crime. Amnesty International defines an enforced disappearance as the detention of someone by the state or its agents, when the authorities deny that the victim is in custody or conceal what has happened to them. Enforced disappearances have occurred across the world - in Sri Lanka, Russia, El Salvador, Morocco, Iraq, Thailand, Pakistan, Bosnia, Equatorial Guinea, Egypt and Argentina, to name a few. No one is immune; victims have included men, women and children.

Stand up against enforced disappearances and support our vigil on 30th August.

(if we don't see you there we might get worried about you.)