Statement

Last week the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) issued an urgent appeal on the case of a man in Burma who has been imprisoned as a consequence of making repeated complaints about electricity supply and other poor services in his neighbourhood of Rangoon. The complainant, U Khin Maung Kyi, 45, in August had called the […]

No progress has been made in the investigation into the extrajudicial , Ghulam Mohammad Baloch, Sher Mohammad Baloch and Lala Muneer Jan Baloch, after their abduction by the persons from the military, frontier corps (FC) and intelligence agencies, on April 3, 2009 from their lawyer’s office. It is reported that the army and FC, who […]

The Pakistani parliament is debating a controversial American bill, the Kerry Luger bill, which would provide Pakistan with US$ 1.5 billion per year over the next five years for democratic, economic and social development programmes. There are several conditions in the bill about military aid to check the involvement of state intelligence agencies in Islamic […]

   Mr. Ranga Bandara, a Member of Parliament gave a live interview to the Asian Human Rights Commission, based in Hong Kong, on October 6th about the arson attack and about the political environment in which this attach took place. Following is a summary of the recorded interview: A group of people entered my premises […]

The opposition politician Ranga Bandara’s house was burned to cinders on the evening of the 4th October. Sometime earlier, the house of another opposition politician, John Pulle, was similarly razed to the ground. In any place where the rule of law exists, even to a basic level, this kind of action would be deemed incredible. […]

Last Friday, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) issued an Urgent Appeal on the case of three teenage girls who have been imprisoned for alleged involvement in an illegal lottery ring in Burma (AHRC-UAC-131-2009). Although the three are all under 16, they were tried in an adult court and sentenced to prison because the police […]

On October 5 1998, the government of Bangladesh, under the leadership of Sheikh Hasina, ratified the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT). Ratification to any international treaty by a nation-state automatically imposes an international obligation to make domestic legislation that is in conformity with the treaty that […]

Human rights organisations working against caste based discrimination in the region must engage in debates on the need for a comprehensive UN framework to tackle caste based discrimination and should encourage affected governments to support such initiative at the UN level. This is the response from the Asian Human Rights Commission and The International Dalit […]

A newspaper advertisement published by the Government of India on Sunday, September 20, 2009, reads ‘Naxalites are nothing but coldblooded criminals’. This advertisement is part of the government’s intensified campaign to combat Naxalite activities in the country. It comes a few weeks after the Prime Minister’s declaration–later confirmed by the Union Home Minister–that Naxalite activities […]

The violent humiliation of three women reported from Punjab this week has thrown stark light on the complicity of the police and the courts in gender-based crimes — and on the continued degeneration of law enforcement in the region. This week three woman accused of prostitution were forced to parade naked through their neighborhood and onto […]

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) express its sincere condolences to the Filipino people for the terrible loss of life caused by typhoon Ondoy (international name: Ketsana) that affected Metro Manila and nearby provinces on Saturday (September 26). The displacement of people and families, the destruction of their livelihoods, properties and homes has brought untold […]

The Pakistan government’s announcement to push ahead with a plan to sell or lease 500,000 acres of farmland to Saudi Arabia has caused widespread outrage at home, raising serious concern over the deterioration of food security and the threat to territorial integrity. Tauqir Ahmad Faiq, regional secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture confirmed the ongoing […]

To argue that some Filipino policemen are corrupt and extorting money on pretext of enforcing their duties and obligations is something that no rational person could disagree with. This is an established fact and even policemen themselves know of how their colleagues make money and obtain perks while on duty. This however, is perpetual and […]

Alexander Solzhenitsyn added the word ‘gulag’ to the human rights vocabulary to describe a type of experience that is being repeated in many parts of the world. His own three volume study was the experience of Russia from 1918 to 1956. Today, in Sri Lanka this same horror is being experienced by the entire population. […]

The Constitutional Court decided yesterday that two articles of the Act on Assembly and Demonstration are unconstitutional. They are article 10 of the Act prohibiting assembly and demonstrating before sunrise and after sunset and article 21(2) describing punishment for a person who violates article 10. In its judgement the Constitutional Court left the responsibility to […]

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) welcomes the release of prisoners from jails around Burma during the last week, especially human rights defenders and persons who were detained during and after the protests of August and September 2007, including numbers of persons on whose cases the AHRC has issued urgent appeals. However, it notes with […]

Those Sri Lankans who grew up before 1971 have seen, at least in a limited way, some basic freedoms. None of them were used to midnight knocks on their doors. If they went to a courthouse, they could expect certain treatment that, though imperfect, would be relatively fair. If a policeman arrested them, they could […]

The body of a high-profile Taliban commander, Sher Muhammad Qassab, was found on the roadside at his hometown, Charbagh, Swat valley on Sunday, four days after his widely publicized arrest on September 16. The government had previously announced a head money of Rupees 10 million for his capture. Qassab was the key commander of Taliban […]

The President of Sri Lanka is reported to have instructed the Defense Secretary to verify the facts stated in a newspaper advertised petition published in several papers, signed by 133 persons condemning the death threat to Dr. P. Saravanamuttu who has received the threat by way of a letter that he would be killed if […]

The criminal nexus between Pakistan’s government administration, police and Muslim fundamentalist organizations has once again brought to the limelight in the extra-judicial torture and killing of a Christian boy following a hate campaign against Christians in Jethki village, Sialkot district, Punjab province on September 11. Please refer to our previous AHRC statement: http://www.ahrchk.net/statements/mainfile.php/2009statements/2224/. The killing of […]