Justice for Human Rights - JHR

When the authorities deny that a person is in their custody, it is not only their name that vanishes from official records… they are stripped of the protection of the law, and the door is thrown open to violations without oversight or accountability.
Enforced disappearance is not merely detention in an unknown location; it is the placing of a human being outside the law and depriving them of their most basic guarantees and rights.

🇵🇸 Behind every prisoner is a human story, a family waiting, and a right that must not disappear behind prison walls.
On 12 September 2026, legal and human rights voices from Palestine and several countries will gather in Geneva for the International Conference Calling for the Release of Palestinian Prisoners, under the theme:
“The Palestinian Prisoner: Between International Law and the Failure of Enforcement.”
Lawyers representing Palestinian prisoners, human rights advocates, academics, legal experts and international guests will come together to share testimonies, address violations against prisoners, and advance concrete pathways toward international accountability and an end to impunity.
📅 Saturday, 12 September 2026
🕙 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM
📍 International Conference Centre Geneva – CICG
Freedom and dignity are not privileges. They are rights that cannot be taken away.
Join us in Geneva and help place the cause of Palestinian prisoners where it belongs: at the heart of international justice.

Behind every face here, a life stopped in an instant… and a family still waiting for an answer.
The question is not how they disappeared, but why their fate remains unknown to this day.
Disclose their fate… where are they?

When a place of detention exists outside official records… the person held there falls outside the protection of the law.
No registration, no judicial oversight, and no lawyer; a closed environment that conceals the truth and opens the door to torture and impunity.
This is why places of detention are hidden… and this is why we ask: where are they?

Names, faces, and stories suddenly stopped… and behind every face, a family still waiting for the truth.
Years of absence do not extinguish their right to reappear, nor their families' right to know their fate.
Where are they?

Enforced disappearance does not merely conceal a person… it strips them of the most basic guarantees of protection, and leaves their family hostage to the unknown.
No lawyer, no contact, and no answer for the family about their fate.
When a person is deprived of their rights and their fate is concealed… protection itself ceases to exist.

Faces with names, stories, and families who wait… yet the fate of those they belong to remains unknown.
Enforced disappearance does not erase a person, nor does it extinguish their family's right to know the truth.
Disclose their fate… where are they?

On the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearance… the question still stands: **where are they?**

More than thirteen years on, families continue to search for their children and await disclosure of their fate, while demands persist for an end to enforced disappearance and for the opening of genuine paths toward truth, accountability, and an end to impunity.

In a joint statement, the signatory human rights organizations affirm that confronting this crime does not end with a statement or an international occasion, and declare the continuation of the campaign until the fate of the forcibly disappeared is disclosed, this practice is halted, and justice is done for victims and their families.

🔗 Read the full joint statement via the link:
https://2u.pw/0CaLJN

It is not enough to know their number… what is required is to know where they are.

Why does the refusal to ratify one of the most important instruments protecting individuals from enforced disappearance persist?
Lawyer Mahmoud Gaber held that Egypt's continued abstention from ratifying the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance deprives victims of additional international guarantees and mechanisms, linking this position to the continuing impunity for violations.
He called for ratification of the Convention, the clear criminalization of enforced disappearance in national legislation, the disclosure of the fate of the forcibly disappeared, and the assurance of independent investigation and accountability for those responsible.
There is no genuine protection without disclosure of the truth… and no justice without accountability.

Eight years, and a mother still awaits a single answer: where is my son?
Mahmoud Gaber, lawyer and Director of JHR, recalled a message he received from the mother of one of the forcibly disappeared, holding that these words encapsulate the human tragedy endured by thousands of families; for the crime does not end with the disappeared person, but extends to a family consumed by waiting, fear, and the unknown.
Behind every name we publish… a family waits for a person they have never stopped searching for.