CCPR/C/112/D/2069/2011 Appendix [Original: Spanish] Individual opinion of Committee member Fabián Omar Salvioli (concurring) 1. I concur with the decision reached by the Committee in Shikhmuradova v. Turkmenistan (communication No. 2069/2011) whereby it declares that the State party bears international responsibility for having violated article 6 (para. 1), article 7, article 9, and article 14 (paras. 1 and 5), with regard to the author’s husband, Boris Shikhmuradov, and article 7 with regard to the author, Tatiana Shikhmuradova, who has endured anguish and suffering as a result of the enforced disappearance of her husband. 2. However, it is my understanding that the Committee should have also found a violation of article 16 (the right to recognition as a person before the law), inasmuch as it has been established that Mr. Shikhmuradov has been the victim of one of the most abhorrent violations of human dignity: enforced disappearance. It should be emphasized that the enforced disappearance of Mr. Shikhmuradov constitutes a continuing offence, since his whereabouts are still not known. 3. Enforced disappearance is an complex violation which, by its nature, affects a number of the rights established under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; one of those rights is clearly the right to recognition as a person before the law, since, in the case of a forcibly disappeared person, the State has intentionally placed that person outside the protection of the law. 4. Placing a victim outside the protection of the law is part of the international definition of enforced disappearance, as set forth in the final portion of article 2 of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 20 December 2006. 5. In 1997, the Committee adopted a legal position that links enforced disappearance with a violation of article 16 of the Covenant when certain circumstances exist. That jurisprudence, while requiring further development from a legal standpoint, has remained constant.a, b 6. Sufficient evidence of the presence of the relevant circumstances has been provided in this case. Mr. Shikhmuradov was arrested by agents of the Ministry of National Security on 25 December 2002 and has been in the power of the State ever since. The victim has not been seen since 2002, and his whereabouts remain unknown despite the efforts of his family. The victim has been unable to seek any remedy, and the remedies that his family members have sought to avail themselves of have proved to be futile and have been blocked. a b 10 See, inter alia, communication No. 1328/2004, Kimouche v. Algeria, Views adopted on 10 July 2007, para. 7.8. See El Abani v. Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, para. 7.9; communication No. 1327/2004, Grioua v. Algeria, Views adopted on 10 July 2007, para. 7.8; communication No. 1495/2006, Madoui v. Algeria, Views adopted on 28 October 2008, para 7.7; and communication No. 1782/2008, Aboufaied v. Libya, Views adopted on 21 March 2012, para. 7.10.