Statement

The Asian Human Rights Commission today joins with the Asian Migrant Centre, Hong Kong, and other organisations worldwide in a global day of action to call for the repeal of the provincial decrees in Thailand against the basic rights of hundreds of thousands of migrant workers there. The provincial decrees, which have been introduced in […]

A group of 25 human rights activists and defenders from Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Thailand who gathered for the Human Rights School Session of the Asian Human Rights Commission for 2007 wish to express their deepest solidarity with the victims and families of forced disappearances and wish to add […]

To the surprise of many, the protests against sharp fuel rises in Burma have continued for a second week, despite constant arrests and harassment of demonstrators and their leaders by plain-clothed police, government officials and gangs of thugs mobilised for the purpose, while soldiers are reported to be watching and waiting in the wings in […]

The state government of Manipur has imposed a series of restrictions regarding ‘publication of objectionable materials’ by the media in the state through its notifications dated August 2 and 14, 2007. The restrictions were published as orders issued by the State Home Department. These orders is a response by the state in the excuse of […]

It is customary for the older generation to tell the younger generation a living memory of what the nation has been. For the survival of a nation and its own identity, a closely guarded national conscience is of paramount importance. It is such jealously guarded conscience that provides the foundation of a nation. Without such […]

The authorities of Bangladesh are giving contradictory figures relating to the number of accused persons in cases lodged with different police stations of Dhaka and other cities. This has been learned from bulletins and reports published over the national television channel as well as private TV stations, including the Dhaka based daily newspapers, which quoted […]

On August 21, 2007 at 6 a.m. a wealthy and well-connected businessman named Oum Chhay, who had been arrested on suspicion of drug-trafficking, was found lying dead on his back on the ground beneath the balcony of the office of the Anti-Drug Department in Phnom Penh. The police immediately said that the suspect had committed […]

The Democratic Voice of Burma radio has posted a video on its website that vividly illustrates the true nature of the recent “arrest” of protestors against the price hikes in fuels there. The footage, shot by an unidentified person at around 1pm on 25 August 2007, shows at least six unidentified plain-clothed men carrying protest […]

Sri Lanka’s Deputy Solicitor General Savindra Fernando has been quoted in the local press as stating that Sri Lanka has often been bullied into signing United Nations (UN) conventions. He was speaking during celebrations of the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the Additional Protocol to the Geneva Convention. Such international instruments on human rights […]

The house of a prominent journalist, Mr. Nadir Shah Adil was attacked by a force of police officers, not less than 30 in number, with an armored car and two police jeeps on August 21, 2007.  Mr. Adil was not at home at the time. Officers from two different police stations of Kalri and Baghdadi […]

The situation in Bangladesh is worsening day by day, with the repressive actions being taken by the authorities only adding fuel to the growing conflagration. Protests that began at Dhaka University on August 20, 2007, have spread beyond the student population and the capital, to include participants from many walks of life. They are beginning […]

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has been following with deep concern and interest the tense situation in Burma since last Wednesday, 15 August 2007, when the military government dramatically increased the costs of all vehicle fuels by up to five times the previous level, without prior announcement. The price increases were immediately passed on […]

Predictably, the military junta in Thailand has coerced, threatened, bought and cajoled part of the electorate into passing its 309-article constitution on August 19. From results to date, just over 14 million people out of the country’s 45 million eligible voters crossed the box in favour of the charter. As only 25 million bothered to […]

A television station in Thailand has broadcast images of a group of soldiers in the north assaulting a teenager. In the 11 August 2007 footage shown by MCOT, a soldier at a checkpoint in Lamphun Province, south of Chiang Mai, knocks 17-year-old school student Ronachai Chantra off his motorcycle. Thereafter around ten of the troops […]

Indonesia, which received the second highest number of votes in elections to the United Nations Human Rights Council earlier this year, will celebrate its sixty second Independence Day on August 17, 2007. Given these election results, we could imagine that Indonesia is considered as being a moderate nation which consistently promotes and protects human rights. […]

A common feature in several Asian countries is that the police, who are supposed to carry out investigations into crimes and abuses of human rights, do not have the necessary competence to carry out such investigations. Today proper criminal investigations require ‘skilled labour’. The investigators require adequate general education as well as competence in various […]

In recent months spokesmen for the Sri Lankan government have become quite aggressive towards the country’s critics. The Attorney General severely attacked the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) regarding its two reports; the president and other spokesmen have attacked the report by Human Rights Watch and now Action Contra La Faim is being […]

In recent days a spate of public assaults by the police and deaths in custody has been reported by independent media monitoring conditions in Burma.  According to the Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) Radio, on 27 July 2007 a 58-year-old man died while being transferred from police detention to a prison in Mandalay Division, […]

Sixty years before India took a quantum leap in its history from being a colony to that of an independent nation. Soon it was a declared to be a democratic, socialist republic. Wheels of administration started turning in a different direction where administration meant no more exploitation, but managing a country and directing its people […]

Today, August 14, 2007 the Islamic Republic of Pakistan celebrates the 60th anniversary of its independence from the British empire and separation from India. For more than half of Pakistan’s existence as an independent homeland it has been ruled by the armed forces who have worked to undermine the evolution of the political system in […]