Statement

The Asian Human Rights Commission is pleased that the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) has published its view in the case of Lieutenant Dingiri Banda after he claimed that he was tortured by two captains of the Sri Lankan Army. The UNHRC has held that the Sri Lankan government violated the rights of Dingiri […]

The AHRC is sharing with you a list of the judges and lawyers that have been arrested, tortured or brought under house arrest since the enactment of emergency law in Pakistan by General Pervez Musharraf. However, this list is not complete. We therefore call upon the public to support the lawyers of the democratic movement […]

Since General Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency and dismissed the Supreme Court of Pakistan on November 3, appointing a mock bench in its place, over 3000 lawyers have been held in remand and many of the best known lawyers in the country are in hiding. Outspoken political leaders are under detention, while others, […]

Pressure applied by the government of Pakistan has caused officials in Dubai to order that the broadcasts of two popular television channels, Geo News and ARY, be cut as of midnight on November 16. Both channels are based in the UAE but for the most part broadcast news about Pakistan. According to the press reports […]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  AS-268-2007 November 16, 2007 A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission BURMA: State, not citizens, the cause of fear & alarm As Burma’s military regime sets about concocting court cases against those whom it has labelled as the ringleaders of protests around the country in August and September, it is increasingly […]

Lawyers Rights Watch Canada (LRWC) and Lawyers without Borders/Québec (LWB) and the Dutch Lawyers for Lawyers Foundation (L4L) and the Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) join to call for: 1.  The immediate release of all lawyers arrested under preventative detention measures, including, without limiting the generality of the foregoing, Asma Jahangir, United Nations Special Rapporteur on […]

We reproduce below the final in the series of five cases researched on the basis of the information collected by the Asian Human Rights Commission in the past years reflecting the type of issues faced by persons who, having become victims of crime or abuse of rights faced extraordinarily repressive conditions when they sought redress. […]

According to a report in the New Light of Myanmar of 9 November 2007 on the latest visit of the United Nations special envoy to Burma, Ibrahim Gambari, “During August and September when the nation saw protest marches, the government had to tackle in accordance with the law the incidents in which some people violated […]

Nandigram, a remote village in West Bengal state of India is once again in front page news in the country. This remote village in West Bengal was in the news 11 months ago when violence erupted in the village. The Communist party led state government used force to silence the protesting farmers who were agitating […]

We reproduce below the fourth in a series of five cases researched on the basis of the information collected by the Asian Human Rights Commission in the past years reflecting the type of issues faced by persons who, having become victims of crime or abuse of rights faced extraordinarily repressive conditions when they sought redress. […]

General Pervez Musharraf on 11 November 2007 announced that he “expects” general elections to be held in Pakistan before January 9, within 60 days of the National Assembly’s dissolution on November 15. He did not indicate an exact date for the elections or when he will lift the state of emergency that he imposed over […]

We the undersigned wish to express our grave concern regarding the ongoing political and human rights crisis in Pakistan. As we meet in Sao Paolo, Brazil for the seventh International Colloquium on Human Rights, organised by NGO Conectas, which aims to strengthen human rights in the South, we note with shock the ongoing crackdown in […]

We reproduce below the third of a series of five cases researched on the basis of the information collected by the Asian Human Rights Commission in the past years reflecting the type of issues faced by persons who, having become victims of crime or abuse of rights faced extraordinarily repressive conditions when they sought redress. […]

An eight-member Supreme Court bench headed by Abdul Hameed Dogar on November 6 overruled a seven-judge decision that had struck down the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) which suspended the constitution of Pakistan when General Pervez Musharaff declared a state of emergency in Pakistan on November 3. Consider the fantastic irony. A court with no constitutional […]

Since the government of General Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency, suspended the constitution and blacked out the media on November 3, it has launched a massive operation to detain virtually anyone deemed a threat to military authority, making plain its real plans for the immediate future. The scale and scope of the detentions […]

We reproduce below the second of a series of five cases researched on the basis of the information collected by the Asian Human Rights Commission in the past years reflecting the type of issues faced by persons who, having become victims of crime or abuse of rights faced extraordinarily repressive conditions when they sought redress. […]

The Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) and its sister organization the Asian Human Rights Commission welcome the proposed visit by the Special Rapporteur for Torture, Dr. Manfred Novak. It comes at a time when the country is stuck in limbo, unable to decide whether to abide by the international standards on human rights or to […]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  AS-257-2007 November 05, 2007 A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission PAKISTAN: Appeal to the international community to take a firm stand for democracy and human rights The imposition of a state of emergency by the military government of Pakistan on November 3, 2007, is nothing less than the thinly disguised imposition of martial law.  […]

movement On 30 October 2007, the Constitutional Court of Indonesia read out its verdict on the constitutional review of the Narcotics Law that provides for the death penalty in several articles. The court ruled that capital punishment in cases of drug trafficking is not unconstitutional and does not violate the constitutional right to life. The […]

The government of General Musharraf is planning to amend the Army Act of 1952 empowering the state intelligence agencies to keep suspected persons in custody as long as they require without producing them before courts. According to the media reports, which were substantiated by the high officials of ministry of defense and law, an amendment […]