Statement

The AHRC also pays tribute to a police officer SSP Choudhry Aslam who was killed in a suicide attack by Taliban A 16 year old boy has saved the lives of 2000 fellow students and school staff by sacrificing himself by stopping a suicide bomber who came to blow the school and kill all the […]

In late December, just days after the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) claimed that the file for the case of the disappearance of Somchai Neelaphaijit had been lost, Niran Adulayasak, Director of the DSI Special Criminal Case Office 1 announced in a news report on Thai PBS that the file had been found (see AHRC-STM-242-2013 for analysis […]

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from CGNet Swara, an organization promoting community journalism in India, regarding the continuing occupation and use of educational institutions in Chhattisgarh by the Indian paramilitary. AHRC has learnt that two companies of the Border Security Force (BSF), deployed at remote Kodapakha village of Kanker district, about […]

On December 18, 2013, the Regional Trial Court (RTC), Branch 19 in Manila City, commenced the trial of Temogen “Cocoy” Tulawie, an indigenous activist, who is being prosecuted for fabricated charges of attempted murder, in connection with a bombing incident on May 13, 2009 in Patikul, Sulu. Photo: Mussah Tulawie, wife of Temogen, (in the middle), […]

The Bangladesh Government and Election Commission have jointly staged their tragicomic ‘general election’ on January 5, 2014. The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) reflected pre-election realities and portended election day and post-election horrors in itslast statement. January 5 fulfilled its promise of violence, rigging, and farce; now it remains to be seen how low Bangladesh […]

A child of 15 was arrested by the security forces in October and there has been no response from the authorities The disappearances and extrajudicial killings in the province of Balochistan continued unabated during 2013. The Voice of Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP) has compiled lists of disappearances and extra judicial killings despite threats and intimidation […]

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from the National NGO Child Rights Coalition and local journalists about children housed in prison in Kokrajhar, Assam. The AHRC is concerned, as such an arrangement is denying children their basic rights. The children are being housed in prison not for any delinquency on their part […]

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from Punjab concerning the protest by fasting held by Mr. Gurbaksh Singh Khalsa, who ended his fast after 43 days, on 29 December 2013. Khalsa had commenced his protest at the Amb Singh Gurdwara on 14 November to secure the release of all Sikh prisoners that […]

The Asian Human Rights Commission expresses concern regarding the safety of the common candidate of the opposition Maithripala Sirisena, who has faced several attacks during the past several days. He has himself alerted the public to the threat to his life in a statement he made yesterday (4th January 2015). We urge the Government and the […]

Bangladesh’s incumbent regime is forcing the nation to witness a fake ‘general election’, scheduled tomorrow, 5 January 2014. All the opposition parties, except the allies of the ruling regime, have boycotted this election. The government is accused of extreme politicisation of the country’s civil administration, along with the police, paramilitary agencies, and all key institutions, […]

Civil society groups must resist the evil designs of the Punjab government to stop the marchers from entering the province The second phase of the Long March for the recovery of hundreds of disappeared persons after their arrest by the security forces has now covered 600 kilometers on its way to Islamabad, the final destiny. […]

A one-and-a-half-year-old infant was buried four days after she died from pneumonia in Toba Tek Singh, Punjab province. The girl, who was from an Ahmadi family, died on December 19, and was taken for burial the following day. At the cemetery the local clerics gathered with approximately fifty men who were armed with sticks and batons. […]

The Asian Human Rights Commission welcomes Order No. 51/2013 of 30 December 2013 by the president of Burma (Myanmar), issuing a general amnesty for all persons imprisoned or facing trial or investigation for certain categories of political offences. The categories include persons accused or convicted of offences under the colonial-era Unlawful Associations Act, for charges […]

In the early morning of December 27, the authorities addressed a large crowd of people protesting outside Badureliya District Hospital. They had come to support a Member of Parliament who was staging a hunger strike demanding the reopening of the hospital. The authorities announced to the crowd that the hospital would be reopened the next […]

The Asian Human Rights Commission wishes to forward this statement regarding persons who chose to join the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam and the treatment they received thereafter. It is extremely perturbing that we have to bring to the notice of the world’s community the plight of two innocent, loyal citizens of Saudi Arabia who had […]

The AHRC condoles the death of Mr. Khurshid Anwar, a writer and activist reputed for his life-long struggle for upholding the rights and dignity of the downtrodden, not only in India but the whole subcontinent. Unable to cope with the mental torture of relentless social media trial over a case of an alleged rape which […]

Following is an extract from the Pastoral Letter of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Sri Lanka, entitled ‘Towards Reconciliation and Rebuilding of the Nation’. In this exercise the independence of the Judiciary should be preserved and defended at all cost. The Judiciary which has the sacred role of interpreting and applying the meaning of a […]

Democracy and human rights were taboo under the military regime until the movement of democratisation which took place in 1987 triggered the 9th Amendment to the Constitution in the country. This Amendment guaranteed at least ‘procedural’ democracy. Those terms were released from constraints that had been kept for decades by the military forces. After they […]

Over the course of 2013 the Asian Human Rights Commission has followed reports of a larger number of conflicts over land grabs and attempted grabs in Burma, or Myanmar. Some of the conflicts are over recently taken land, and others are reinitiating struggles begun many years ago. These land grabs include the well-known expansion of […]

The case of human rights lawyer Somchai Neelaphaijit, whom police officers abducted and forcibly disappeared over nine years ago, took a new twist when the Department of Special Investigation claimed that its file on his case had itself disappeared during anti-government protests last week. According to Niran Adulayasak, Director of Special Criminal Case Office 1 […]