Abductions and Enforced Disappearances
Governments that reach across their borders to physically apprehend and return their
nationals without the formal involvement of the state in which the victim resides can be
considered an abduction or kidnapping. When the abducting state refuses to acknowledge
holding the person or provides no information as to their fate or whereabouts, it is an
enforced disappearance. Forcibly disappeared people are commonly subjected to torture
or extrajudicial execution. Families must live with the uncertainty of not knowing if their
loved ones are dead or alive, and worry about their treatment in captivity.
Human Rights Watch has documented cases of governments or their agents snatching
people in broad daylight or forcing them into unmarked cars outside of their homes, or
physically dragging them off grounded airplanes.
Algeria
Slimane Bouhafs is an Amazigh activist who fled Algeria after persecution by the Algerian
authorities, and was granted international protection by UNHCR in Tunisia. He went
missing from Tunisia in August 2021. According to witnesses, unidentified men in civilian
clothes appeared at Bouhafs’ home in Tunis, put a bag over his head and forced him into a
car before driving away. His whereabouts were not officially confirmed for several days,
when he appeared in an Algerian court for alleged links to the Mouvement pour
l’autodétermination de la Kabylie (Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylie) and for
posts he made on Facebook. The Algerian authorities, in a letter, claimed to have arrested
Bouhafs in Algeria in August 2021, after he tried to check into a hotel without showing
identification. On July 4, 2023, an Algerian court sentenced him to three years in prison for
“insulting Islam” and terrorism-related charges.
Belarus
The Belarusian government increasingly cracked down on peaceful protests that erupted
following President Aliaksander Lukashenko’s manipulation of the presidential vote in
2020. In 2021, Belarusian authorities forced a commercial flight to land as it passed
through Belarusian airspace in order to detain Raman Pratasevich, an activist and former
editor of an opposition Telegram channel, and his girlfriend Sofya Sapega. Following his
“WE WILL FIND YOU”
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