The Kashmir Reader on 20 August 2014 reported that Mary Aileen Diez Bacalso, the Secretary General of Manila-based Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD), was deported after her arrival at the Mumbai International Airport, India. “I’m sure that I was prevented from entering the country because of my work for the AFAD, and for the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) on the issue of enforced disappearances, on the mass graves, and on the persecution of human rights defenders in Kashmir,” Bacalso told over phone from Manila.Bacalso said it was not the first time that India denied a visa to an AFAD official from visiting the country. She said that the matter was reported to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced Disappearances and to the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances.
“And India ironically signed the International Convention for the Protection of all the persons from enforced disappearance. And in that convention it states that the families of the disappeared have the right to organize themselves and also to work for truth and justice…” she added.
The AFAD Secretary General explained that she was not on an official but a personal visit to Mumbai on her friend’s invitation. “I was going to stay in Mumbai as a tourist for only four days. …I was not planning to go to Kashmir.”
Upon her arrival at the Mumbai airport on August 17 the officials told her that she had done something ‘bad’ during her five-day visit to India in November 2009. [Prior to her visit, the Indian embassy in Philippines told her travel agent that Philippine nationals can obtain a 20-day visa upon arrival
“Defenders issued Card to local HRA” was the proud headline when Abdul Qadeer Dar, Executive Director of Voice of Victims and Chairman of the Peoples Rights Movement in Srinagar, Kashmir, received his card labeling him as a human rights defender. This announcement, dating back to April 2013, is just to illustrate how certain tools for human rights defenders work in practice. The Dublin-based NGO Frontline Defenders has been issuing ‘identity cards’ to local human rights defenders for years. The cards do not have legal status and do not empower the holders to represent Front Line defenders. The card is intended to demonstrate that its holder is human rights defender with whom front Line Defenders has a working relationship.
For many years Dublin-based Front Line Defenders has continued a practice of issuing official-looking cards to whom they judge to be genuine human rights defenders. It is interesting to note that the news service Authint has picked up on this and issued a statement on 2 April 2013 saying: Defenders has issued an identity card to local human rights activist Abdul Qadeer Dar [in Kashmir]. Dar is an Executive Director of Voice of Victims and Chairman Peoples Rights Movement.” “The card is for those human rights defenders who have worked very closely with or have attended one of the Dublin Platforms or trainings”, Front Line told KNS. The “Card doesn’t empower the holder to represent Front Line defenders as it is not a membership organization. The card is intended to demonstrate that its holder is human rights defender with whom front Line Defenders has worked”.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 