Statement

Earlier the Asian Human Rights Commission shared the Open Letter written to the Acting President and the Dean of the School of Law of the City University regarding the participation of the Chief Justice, Sarath Silva of Sri Lanka, in a conference entitled “Hong Kong Basic Law: the First Ten years and its future”. In […]

The statements made by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of India at the 5th United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) sessions appeared as if the NHRC is confused about its own mandate. The NHRC is a human rights monitoring institution constituted by an Act of Parliament, ‘The Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993’. The […]

June 17, 2007, was bad day for journalists in Pakistan as one was shot dead and another was arrested by the law enforcement agencies and has been missing since then. His whereabouts are not known and his parents fear that he has been killed by the military. According to the reports received, Mr. Abdul Lateef […]

The shooting of the villagers in Pasuruan Rajawali Nusantara Corporation (RNC), having links with the Indonesian Naval Forces – Navy’s Eastern Fleet in Surabaya, cultivated a disputed land in Alas Tlogo Village, Lekok, Pasuruan, East Java. The villagers had been claiming the traditional ownership of the land for sometime. On 30 May 2007, RNC started […]

According to an article in The Nation newspaper of June 12, the attorney general of Thailand has proposed to increase the powers of the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) under the justice ministry so that the department could overrule the public prosecutor in cases where the latter decides not to go to court on the […]

In recent weeks the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received many detailed and worrying reports about the in Burma. Gangs of thugs, apparently most under the direction of the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), a mass-organising body, have been used to attack human rights defenders going about their business and persons holding prayer […]

Mr. Nisar Khokhar, a correspondent of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) along with a local newspaper journalist was stopped from entering the district of Dera Bugti, Balochistan province where the Pakistan Army has been conducting military operations since 2001. Mr. Khokhar was assigned to investigate a report of seven women who were arrested at the […]

The President refuses to meet with the UN Special Representative to the Secretary General On Human Rights Defenders. The refusal by president of Indonesia, Mr. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to meet with the Special Representative of the Secretary General on Human Rights Defenders, Ms. Hina Jilani is very much to be regretted. This incident coming in […]

Joint Oral Intervention by the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (Forum-Asia), the Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC), the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, the International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development (INFID), and Migrants Rights International and Pax Romana, at the 5th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, during the Interactive […]

Hundreds of political activists and ordinary citizens have been arrested in Pakistan in an attempt to prevent people from participating in a welcoming rally in honour of the Chief Justice Mr. Iftekhar Choudhray who is scheduled to visit Faisalabad, an industrial city in Punjab province, on June 16, 2007. The Chief Justice of Pakistan is […]

President Mahinda Rajapakse will be attending meetings in Geneva in an attempt to discuss serious allegations of human rights abuses in Sri Lanka including abductions, forced disappearances, torture, the forced expulsion of almost 400 Tamils from Colombo, problems of a few hundred thousand internally displaced persons and the general breakdown of the rule of law […]

On June 1st the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) submitted its first Interim Report to the President of Sri Lanka. The report contained the observations and concerns of the IIGEP about the Presidential Commission of Inquiry to Investigate and Inquiry into Alleged Serious Violations of Human Rights (The Presidential Commission). Among other things […]

The following is a statement delivered on behalf of the Asian Legal Resource Centre supported by the Law society and Trust, Sri Lanka at 5th Session of the UN Human Rights Council. June 11th 2007 – 5th Session of the UN Human Rights Council. Oral Intervention of the Asian Legal Resource Centre, Hong Kong supported […]

The Cambodia Development Cooperation Forum (CDCF) composed of donors and the Cambodian government will convene on 19-20 June to discuss the progress in the implementation of Cambodia’s development plan and its funding. This meeting is yet another occasion for all participants to honour their human rights obligations towards the Cambodian people under the Paris Peace […]

While the actions by the government to expel over three hundred Tamils from Colombo came under furious condemnation in the parliament, by political and civil society organisations in the country and also from the United States Embassy and other international groups, President Mahinda Rajapakse has done nothing to ensure that proper action is taken against […]

The Prime Minister of Pakistan, Mr. Shoukat Aziz has suspended the implementation of the recently amended Pakistan Electronic Media Regularity Authority (PEMRA) Ordinance which was issued by President General Musharraf on June 4, 2007. The amended ordinance gave the Authority sweeping powers with which to seal the premises of, or confiscate the equipment of broadcasters […]

The Asian Human Rights Commission condemns the forcible removal of several hundred Tamils from Colombo by the Sri Lankan police and military in an operation carried out on the morning of June 7, 2007. Several buses were loaded with Tamils, a few of whom, according to reports are permanent residents and others who were visiting […]

What is common between the governments in Uganda, Sudan, India and Nigeria? The past or present governments in these four states had employed a policy of arming the local population against its own people. After implementing this policy the African states named above soon found that the situation what they sought to contain in fact […]

On the evening of June 1, 2007 two Red Cross volunteers who had attended a training programme of the Red Cross in Colombo and were returning home to Batticaloa were abducted at the Central Railway Station in the presence of several of their colleagues. Their colleagues immediately complained to the Inspector General of Police and […]

President Pervez Musharraf has handed unprecedented powers to the Pakistan Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA), allowing it to seize the broadcast or distribution service equipment of television and radio channels and suspend their licenses. The ordinance which came into effect on June 4, 2007 has also displaced the Council of Complaints, the body under which complaints […]