Statement

Mr. A. K. Antony, the Defense Minister of India is an exception as a politician. Antony has an impeccable record of being honest. Antony is from the state of Kerala where he is often referred to as the ‘saint’. But it appears that he has left his honesty back home in Kerala, when he took […]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AS-147-2007 June 28, 2007 A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission SRI LANKA: AG’s reply to IIGEP; Kafkan metamorphosis of the Attorney General’s role – Part Two (The first part of this statement appeared June 27, 2007 which you may find at: http://www.ahrchk.net/statements/mainfile.php/2007statements/1094/) Witness protection – conflicting policies – declarations of Draft […]

Ever conscious of the fact the entire world is watching Sri Lanka’s ongoing human rights crisis President Mahinda Rajapakse and his government are making comments and promises they do not appear to be either willing or capable of keeping. In the first week of June the bodies of two Red Cross workers were found in […]

A 16-year-old girl, who was gang raped by 11 persons, has been thrown out of her safe house by officials of the Sindh police, Pakistan. On Sunday, June 24, 2007 Mr. Rana Pervez, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) of Police Headquarters along with Station Head Officer (SHO) of Garden police station and other police officials, […]

Lawyers, protesting against the suspension of the Chief Justice, held a mock funeral ceremony for the notorious “Doctrine of Necessity” on June 26, 2007, at the Lahore High Court Bar Association’s office. At this ceremony the lawyers pledged that they will not let the Doctrine of Necessity take root in country’s political system and allow […]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AS-143-2007 June 27, 2007 A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission SRI LANKA: AG’s reply to IIGEP; Kafkan metamorphosis of the Attorney General’s role The Attorney General C.R. de Silva (AG) issued a letter dated June 18, 2007 to the Chairman of the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) retaliating […]

On June 15, yet more civilians were killed when a person carrying an improvised explosive device (IED) left it to explode in a bus in a crowded public terminal in Bansalan, Davao del Sur. The explosion was so strong that it rocked the place, killed two persons instantly and wounded others; some died later in […]

A recording and transcripts of a conversation have been made available online which if true expose the extent to which Thailand’s senior judiciary is compromised and controlled by outsiders, and what a long road it will be to restoring any notion of the rule of law there. The recording, released by a spokesperson of the […]

They heard the thud of wood on flesh. Boot on bone. On teeth. The muffled grunt when a stomach is kicked in. The muted crunch of skull on cement. The gurgle of blood on a man’s breath when his lung is torn by the jagged end of a broken rib. Blue-lipped and dinner-plate-eyed, they watched, […]

(We produce here a news item published in the Sunday Times, June 24, 2007 ‘CJ off to HK despite protests’ which was a completely fabricated story). We also reproduce below a copy of a letter written to the Editor, Sinha Ratnatunga, by the Asian Human Rights Commission denying this story and seeking a correction. CJ […]

The Prime Minister of India declared in a public speech early this year that India would soon ratify the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Since then, nothing has been heard about India’s preparation to ratify this convention. Instances of custodial torture in the meanwhile are reported […]

Pakistan is a country where even Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the apex court, is not spared physical and mental torture by the country’s law enforcement agencies.  Mr. Iftekhar Choudhary, the Chief Justice of Pakistan, was abused and tortured twice by law enforcement agencies, once in Islamabad (capital of Pakistan) and once in Karachi […]

Bangladesh has been a sitting member of the UN Human Rights Council since 9 May 2006, and has passed more than a year in the world’s top human rights forum. Before being elected to the Council Bangladesh placed its candidature among an overcrowded list of voluntary pledges. The country affirmed its “deep commitment to the […]

Cambodia acceded to the Convention against (CAT) in 1992. Its criminal law, adopted in the same year, has succinctly criminalised torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of detainees and punishes any public agent who violates this right with one to five years in prison. Torture and other forms of ill-treatment have […]

On the International day for the elimination of torture the special consideration of the extremely harsh conditions prevailing in Sri Lanka relating to the observance of human rights needs to be stressed. Abductions, forced disappearances, killing of persons after arrest, torture and other gross abuses of human rights are accompanied by the failure of the […]

In recent months, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has heard of more and more cases of torture by state officials in Thailand. The majority of these cases are from the south and northeast. The fact that the two regions are at the opposite ends of the country and yet the practices bear many resemblances […]

Torture victims in the Philippines have suffered from the physical and mental pain inflicted on them by those who have mercilessly tortured them and have suffered a second time from the lack of a law criminalising torture. For years, torture victims in the country have been waiting for redress and a legal tool they can […]

The sentence meted out to the five police officers of Banjansari District Police Station found guilty of having tortured Roni Ronaldo to death on 20th November 2006, serves as evidence of Indonesia’s flawed legislation regarding torture. In fact, torture is still not criminalized, and no adequate punishment is provided by the Indonesian law. If an […]

The serious collapse of the rule of law in Sri Lanka is accompanied by the collapse of the policing system, the degeneration of the prosecuting system under the Attorney General’s Department and the problems of the judicial system. The first two statements of the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) have already pointed out […]

The adoption of on the President’s text is an important achievement. We thank Ambassador de Alba and congratulate him on his untiring efforts over the last year to bring the Council to this point. Without him the Council could not be where it is today. We also pay tribute to the Facilitators and many others […]