Group demands action on forcibly missing people in Dominican Republic

Santo Domingo.- Relativesand members of the National Human Rights Commission held a vigil outside theJustice Ministry Monday seeking to expand the investigations into the numerous forciblydisappeared persons in the Dominican Republic.

Commission president ManuelMaria Mercedes said there have been several cases of disappearances in the last10 years, with civilian or military authorities blamed for most of them.

He also demanded thatCongress ratify two international covenants which they can resort to in thosetypes of cases. These are the Convention for the Protection of All Persons fromForced Disappearances of the United Nations and the Inter-American Convention onForced Disappearance of Persons.

"The DominicanRepublic, despite the efforts being carried out in human rights issues, has yetto be these two important commitments to the international community and Dominicansociety and it’s unfortunate that the ratification of these two importantconventions don’t seem to be taken into account in the National Human RightsPlan being implemented by the Foreign Ministry," Mercedes said.

Cases

Narciso Gonzalez(Narcisazo), went missing since 1994, Juan Alfredo Díaz, vanished in 2012, and RandyVizcaíno recently, are some of the most sounding cases forced disappearances.