Urgent Appeal Case

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a torture victim, S. Channa Prasanka Fernando (27) was kidnapped and tortured for three days by Sergeant Subasinghe of the Negombo Police who forced the victim to write letters withdraw complaints against him. Previously, the victim had been tortured by the same sergeant […]

Dear friends, The AHRC has received information that the life of Mr. Man Bahadru Budhamagar (22) is in great danger. On 16 September 2004 Mr. Man Bahadru Budhamagar was illegally arrested by army personnel from the Majaha Gaon Army Barrack Mahendra Nagar, Kanchanpur District, merely because he informed his case to human rights groups. On […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is gravely concerned of 14-year-old Dalit girl, Saraswati Bishwakarma and her mother Shirkumari Bishwakarma, who were sentenced to life imprisonment (20 years’ imprisonment in Nepal) for murder which they did not commit. The girl is the only witness of the murder of Deepa Gurung who was her […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is gravely concerned by the ban on the Chamar Dalit community in Bhagawatpur-9 village by the upper caste villagers imposed since 6 September 2004. This situation arose following the decision of Chamar Dalits in the village calling for their social status and rights not to remove carcasses from […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information of alleged torture of Mr. Welgama Ralalage Wijitha Herath (40) by the Officer in Charge (O.I.C.) and one constable attached to the Polgahawela police station on 5 September 2004. Due to severe torture, the victim has been receiving treatment at the hospital until now. […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a man named Mr. Ganesh Kshetri (44) was severely tortured by the Balaju Ward Police on 28 August 2004. The victim’s family reported that Mr. Kshetri has completely lost his mental control due to brutal torture and needs urgent medical treatment. The victim […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that an 11-year-old boy named Khokan Hembram died due to severe assault by Mr. Ujjal Laha and his hired goons who suspected him as a theft without any evidence in Dohali village, Sagardighi Police Station, Murshidabad District, West Bengal on 5 September 2004. It […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a young prisoner named Lewadeni Parirannehelage Senake Weerasinghe has been disappeared from open prison camp at Pallekele since 19 August 2004. The prison authorities claimed that he had escaped from the prison while he was taken for a bath. However, the prison authorities […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received another honor killings case from Sindh Province, Pakistan. According to the information received, Ms. Mehan (22) was shot dead by her nephew Altaf (25) at her house in in Mirzapur village, Shikarpur district, Sindh province early in the morning of 7 July 2004. After killing his […]

Dear friends, It has come to the attention of the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) that Mr. Wijesekara Pathiranage Lionel Weerasinghe (33) was arbitrarily arrested and brutally tortured by police officers attached to the Yatawatta Police station on 16-17 July 2004. Mr. Wijesekara Pathiranage was allegedly charged of stealing cinnamon worth Rs. 80,000 without any […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received detailed documentary evidence and additional information from the Burma Lawyers’ Council indicating that persons in Burma attempting to take complaints of forced labour to the courts, in accordance with national law, are being obstructed and themselves accused of defaming the authorities. In this Urgent Appeal, […]

SUMMARY The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learnt from the Burma Lawyers’ Council and Yoma 3 information service (Thailand) that a young man has been sentenced to two years jail in Burma for having attempted to stop a police officer from assaulting a homeless woman. The man, Kyaw Min Htun, was sentenced to two […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that Harshana Tharindu Wijegunawardena, an 11-year-old student (grade 6) at St. John’s College in Panadura, has been subjected to discrimination and inhuman and degrading treatment tantamount to mental torture after receiving compensation for being assaulted by one of the teachers. Please send a letter […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from a human rights organization in Bangladesh that Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) officials arbitrarily tortured and arrested Sha Newaz Tito, Munir Hossain Talukdar and Ziaul Alam Dipu in the Agrabad area of Chittagong, Bangladesh on 4 August 2004. The brutal torture led to the […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from its partner organisation in West Bengal, Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM) that a pregnant Dalit woman, Lilabati Chowdhury, was brutally beaten by a police patrol party of the Beharampore police station at midnight on 7 August 2004. After the assault, Lilabati was admitted to […]

Dear friends The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from its partner organisation in West Bengal, Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (Masum), about a violent attack on a group of human rights defenders engaged in a street meeting in Hooghly, greater Kolkota. Over 50 persons led by local leaders of the ruling communist party attacked […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information about the rape of a 30-year-old woman in a vacant train compartment at the Hasanabad Railway station, West Bengal on 18 August 2004. The woman was raped by a Railway Police Force constable while a fellow constable held a rifle pointed at the woman’s […]

Dear friends It has come to the attention of the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) that a cleric, Qari Mohammad Noor, arrested last week for suspected al-Qaeda links has died in custody in controversial circumstances. While the post-mortem reports have not been disclosed to the public, human rights groups claim that there were marks of […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that Mount Lavinia police severely assaulted numerous Bata Shoe Company workers in Colombo on 12 August 2004, to break up a 52-day long protest. Male and female workers were seriously injured in the police assault, after which the police arbitrarily arrested 13 of them. […]

  Dear friends, It has come to the attention of the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) that while the Calcutta High Court granted leave on 28 July 2004 to prosecute police officers allegedly responsible for the forced disappearance of Bhikari Paswan in 1993, Bhikari’s father, a chief witness in the case, who had struggled for […]