On 16 November, the IFJ Asia Pacific and the Federation of Nepali Journalists (FNJ) supported by IFEX launched Without a Trace: Missing Media Workers in the Asia Pacific. The website is an online record highlighting the stories of 10 media workers who disappeared and currently remain missing in the region. To date, their cases are unsolved and largely uninvestigated.
The campaign focuses on the cases of Juanita Nielsen (Australia), Ahmed Rilwan Abdulla (Maldives), Joey Estriber (the Philippines), Prakash Singh Thakuri, Chitra Narayan Shrestha, Milan Nepali, Madan Paudel (all of Nepal), and Prageeth Eknaligoda, Subramaniam Ramachandran and Vadivel Nimalarajah (all of Sri Lanka).
The Without a Trace resource has been launched as part of the IFJ Asia-Pacific’s 2015 End Impunity campaign and provides a profile of the missing journalists, including personal information, the circumstances of their disappearance and the nature of the authorities’ investigation and response. Some cases date back as long as 40 years while others such as Ahmed Rilwan have been missing just over a year.
See the list here and sign the IFJ petition calling on governments to take action on enforced disappearances here.
For more information, please contact IFJ on + 32 2 235 22 16
The IFJ represents more than 600,000 journalists in 139 countries