Top Thai rights defender has fought other people’s battles for years. She never gave up her own.

It’s been 17 years since her husband’s disappearance catapulted her into a premier human rights fighter, and, today, she hasn’t given up on finding him.

Angkhana Neelapaijit, the former human rights commissioner who’s campaigned on behalf of countless others, today petitioned the Department of Special Investigation, or DSI, to reopen the case of her missing husband, Somchai Neelapaijit, a rights lawyer who went missing exactly 17 years ago today in 2004.

She said that despite feeling defeated and pained by the lack of progress, Angkhana still believes there will come a time the truth is known. 

“The culprits will no longer have their hiding places, and justice will return,” she said today. “I can only say that, throughout my life, I did my best as a mother and friend to society.”

Angkhana, a 64-year-old former nurse, served on the National Human…