Urgent Appeal Case

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from Navsarjan, a human rights organisation based in Gujarat that the only Valmiki (lowest Dalit sub-caste) family living in Shampara (also known as Khodiyar) village is in danger of being forced out from their home. This action is due to a boycott imposed on […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from QIC-AC Uttar Pradesh (QIC-AC UP), a human rights association that in Bahraich district a 14-year-old girl was sexually abused then shot by a member of a mafia. At the time, she was alone in her home as her only remaining family member, her […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) writes with deep concern regarding the continued detention of 19 workers who are facing fabricated charges for holding a strike two years ago. They were, at the time, protesting the illegal termination, demanding payment of minimum wages and other lawful benefits from their employers. One of the […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from the Navsarjan Trust, a Gujarat-based human rights NGO, that there has been a social boycott put into place by the entire non-Dalit community against the Dalits of Nesda village. This was in response to the Dalits’ refusal to dispose of dead animals, a […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) writes to inform you about the continued disappearance of one of three men. Soldiers illegally arrested them on May 18, 2009, on suspicion that they were members of a rebel group. The missing victim was last reported in police custody; however, the police officer who had taken […]

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned that a Norwegian citizen and political activist of Iranian nationality has been forcefully abducted from a bus between Balochistan province and the Sindh province capital, Karachi. Eyewitnesses described his abductors as armed, plain-clothed and in a fleet of four-wheel jeeps bearing no registration number, but […]

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a team of Manipur Police Commandos (MPC) shot a pregnant woman dead in front of her young son, allegedly by accident, and shot dead a young man at close range in custody. Officials claim that the man was trying to escape but eyewitnesses […]

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that an activist working for the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) and the Labour Party of Pakistan, has been arrested and remanded on charges of terrorism and disturbing the peace. The charges disproportionately refer to demonstrations he helped organise against the burning murders […]

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned that all the lowest caste (Dalit) families in a Bhavnagar District village are living under boycott conditions, which deny them employment, access to water, the use of village shops or public roads, and any contact with non-Dalits. The boycott was started by Brahmins after Dalits […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned that 125 Dalit families have been forced to leave their village after they voted in the lower house parliament election. Earlier in the year upper-caste members had assaulted the village council head, a Dalit, when he refused to vote for their favoured candidate.  He registered […]

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information regarding the botched arrest and shooting of two men by Urubokka police officers, who then fabricated their charges. The Assistant Superintendent of Police admitted that they were innocent in the Magistrate’s Court, however the officers responsible have not yet been investigated for misconduct.  CASE […]

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned that police officers have arrested the driver of a three-wheel taxi in Wattala and tortured him severely to force a confession. During a routine check his passengers were found to be carrying drugs, but were reportedly released after they paid bribe money. The driver is […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission has been informed that a peasant activist, who lives in Sindh Province, has received no protection or help from police despite being subjected to torture, countless threats, abduction and currently dispossession from his land by influential landowners; due to his human rights work in assisting those who remain […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from Guria, a local human rights organisation based in Uttar Pradesh, regarding the alleged kidnapping and physical harassment for the purposes of human trafficking, of a twelve-year-old girl in Varanasi. After failing to take immediate action, the police eventually recovered the girl. Further, abuse […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a father of three was arbitrarily picked up and tortured by police, first in a wood then at a police station, to force a confession of theft. They did not inform the family of his arrest and denied that he was being held […]

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission has received information that a young Christian grocer has been wrongly arrested under the blasphemy law after another shopkeeper advised him to burn some old papers, then reported him for burning the Quran. The blasphemy law is regularly misused by people with vendettas against minority persons and police […]

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a young man is facing fabricated charges in Kandy Magistrate’s Court. The cases against him are patently flawed and he was illegally detained and badly tortured after his arrest. We are told that the lawyer assigned to the victim by police did not […]

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a Dalit community has been living under a complete economic and social boycott levied against them by their village since May 1, 2009. Dalits from 163 households in an Ahmedabad village cannot find employment, or sell or purchase anything in the village, ever […]

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that no investigation is being done into the rape and murder of a woman last year by a group of men, which included two police officers. Station heads have allegedly requested bribes from the victim’s family and accepted large sums from the accused, and […]

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a local feudal leader and his family, the Khans, who control affairs in Ingoli village, Gujarat, are behind the social ostracism of three Dalit families. After a young Dalit man complained to the police of being beaten by a group of Khans, his […]