Statement

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  AHRC-STM-234-2009 November 27, 2009 A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission PAKISTAN: Another Ahmadi academic is killed by Muslim fundamentalists On November 26, 2009 Mr. Rana Salim, a well known educationalist of Sanghir district, Sindh province, was shot dead. Mr. Salim and his wife ran the prestigious New Life public school, […]

Wednesday, November 25, 2009 Lawyers Rights Watch Canada (LRWC) and the Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) condemn the execution of two human rights lawyers, Concepcion Brizuela and Cynthia Oquendo, along with 55 others in the November 23, 2009 massacre in Maguindanao province of the Philippines. condemn government failure to investigate the murders of more that […]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AHRC-PUB-006-2009 November 26, 2009 A Publication by the Independent Citizens’ Fact-Finding Report to the Nation forwarded by the Asian Human Rights Commission INDIA: Democracy ‘Encountered’: Rights’ Violations in Manipur Manipur, a state in the north-east of India is often in news for all the wrong reasons. The irony, unfortunately, is that there […]

The women of Pakistan bear the brunt of poor governance, military strife, and the corruption of the social, political and economic systems which surround them. W omen make up 49% of the population of Pakistan, yet they are continuously marginalized and discriminated against by the middle class and feudal societies, and through political and social […]

“The theory or the claim made by the leaders of the movements or the icons, from political or social organisations, does not carry conviction to conclude that the demolition that was carried out by the karsevaks [soldiers] spontaneously out of sheer anger or emotions. The mode of assault, the small number of karsewaks who carried out the demolition and […]

Today the world celebrates International Child Rights Day. While declarations and promises are made to guarantee safe living conditions for children, little is known about an estimated 70,000 bonded child labourers working in ‘rat mines’ of Meghalaya state in India. The Impulse NGO Network, an independent human rights organisation working in Shillong, Meghalaya, estimates that […]

In recent days police in Thailand arrested and charged another person over causing a decline in the stock market by spreading rumours through the Internet about the king’s health. According to news reports, Tassaporn Ratawongsa, 42, a radiologist at the Thonburi Hospital was arrested on 18 November 2009 and charged under section 14 of the […]

It may have a recently-restored judiciary and an elected government that claims a strong interest in the rule of law, but Pakistan is seeing little progress in the hundreds of missing person’s cases still pending. Pakistanis continue to be regularly ‘disappeared’ after arrest. With the police force exposed as increasingly negligent and corrupt, the responsibility […]

Bangladesh’s Minister for Home Affairs Ms. Sahara Khatun has reportedly said that “no ‘crossfire’ killing [has] occurred since her party has assumed office” in January this year while she was speaking to the media yesterday, 17 November 2009. The minister made this statement on the same day when a Division Bench of the High Court […]

E.M. Parvati died yesterday. Parvati was a resident of Belgachhia Bhagar, a municipal dumping ground of Howrah in West Bengal. The doctor who examined Parvati’s body certified that the cause of death was pulmonary tuberculosis aggravated by severe malnourishment and anaemia. Parvati is not the first person in her family to die in this manner. […]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AHRC-STM-224-2009 November 16, 2009 A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission INDIA: Civil society demands “food security to all” On November 9 2009, a number of human rights activists working on right to food issues in fourteen districts came to Jaipur, Rajasthan in order to discuss the current food insecurity as […]

The Sri Lankan government today issued emergency regulations to be operative from midnight tonight (November 16, 2009) which makes the services relating to oil, electricity, harbor and water resources essential services. This gazette notification means that any action taken by the trade unions for the improvement of wages and working conditions within these essential service […]

The employees in the Sri Lanka Ports Development Authority complained of death threats while engaged in a work-to-rule action for the improvement of wages. These employees have complained that for four years there has been no improvement of wages, although living costs have been rising steadily and significantly. Yesterday, the 11th November, they successfully completed […]

Mr. Nisar Baloch, aged 46, was shot dead on November 7, by motorbike riders. Police have refused to mention the names of the murderers in the First Investigation Report (FIR), owing to the fact that the accused persons belong to ruling political party, MQM, which has a background of target killings. On November 6, the […]

The Pakistan army has imposed censorship by various means on the independent news coming out of the areas where the army is conducting operations against militants. Officers of the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), are reported to have been calling media officials to their offices and telling them to stop covering the news independently and […]

Much of the human rights advocacy concerning the use of torture in Burma is centred on cases of political detainees. These cases rightly deserve close attention and study. However, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is aware that most victims of torture in Burma are not political prisoners but, as in other parts of Asia, […]

The Asian Human Rights Commission has learned that on 22 October 2009 Mr. F. M. Masum, a journalist of an English language national daily newspaper in Bangladesh, was tortured by members of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), at his residence in Dhaka. The New Age newspaper reports that at around noon on Thursday a team […]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AHRC-STM-216-2009 17 October, 2009 A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission INDIA: World Food Day and International Day for the Eradication of Poverty: Do not give food, give the ‘right to food’ India is a country moving too slowly to ensure food and health security to malnourished children. The Global Hunger […]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AHRC-STM-216-2009 17 October, 2009 A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission INDIA: World Food Day and International Day for the Eradication of Poverty: Do not give food, give the ‘right to food’ India is a country moving too slowly to ensure food and health security to malnourished children. The Global Hunger […]

The state has been illegally interrupted in Sarghoda district, with the victim informed that he is now not allowed to leave his house, and liable to be arrested if he does so. The order, he reports, came verbally from one of the officers who tortured him. His police security guards have told him that they […]