Administration of justice

বাংলাদেশ: এএইচআরসির বিবৃতি রাষ্ট্রপতির সাজা মওকুফ রাজনৈতিক খেলা হতে পারে না

Dear friends, We wish to share with you the following report published in Prothom Alo, a national Bangla language daily newspaper of Bangladesh, on 1 March 2012. The original story can be read at: http://www.prothom-alo.com/detail/date/2012-03-01/news/228930 . Asian Human Rights Commission Hong Kong ————- A Statement from the Prothom Alo, a national Bangla language daily newspaper of Bangladesh, […]

SRI LANKA: Drama on the Ah

If a girl sits badly, it is up to her mother to cover her thighs. – Orma (Kenyan) Proverb Again, it works, doesn’t it? But for how long you are going to trap the public with this same strategy which has different faces? When the person who has abused power and undermined the basic rights of […]

BANGLADESH: Clemency must not be a political game

The President of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh Md. Zillur Rahman has once again exercised his power of clemency. This time his office has commuted the sentence of a convict formerly given a life sentence to that of a ten years’ imprisonment.  It is not surprising that the same person has received two commutations in […]

INDIA: A corpse of rights without justice at its soul

One of the sad truths that we have to live with today is that the people’s struggles for human rights are highly fragmented in India. Equally disheartening is the fact that whenever or wherever human rights comes up for discussion, it is addressed in piecemeal, ignoring and leaving far behind a comprehensive approach to rights […]

The system works here in Hong Kong, Sir; it is the system operators that have failed in Sri Lanka — a reply to a presidential advisor

One of the advisors to the Sri Lankan president went to Vavuniya last Saturday (February 25) to talk to the people displaced by ‘the war’ and was interviewed by a BBC correspondent. The presidential advisor told the correspondent that the displaced people in Vavuniya had not received as much benefit as the people in the […]

ශ්‍රී ලංකාව: සාමකාමී උද්ඝෝෂකයින්ට වෙඩි තැබීම ආණ්ඩුවේ පුරුද්දද?

මාධ්‍ය නිවේදනයයි AHRC-STM-034-2012-SI පෙබරවාරි 22, 2012 ආසියානු මානව හිමිකම් කොමිසමේ නිවේදනයයි සාමකාමී ලෙස උද්ඝෝෂණය කරන උද්ඝෝෂකයින්ට වෙඩි තැබීම ශ්‍රී ලංකා පොලිසිය සාමාන්‍යයෙන් සිදුකරන දෙයක් බව ධීවර සහ ජලජ සම්පත් සංවර්ධන කැබිනට් අමාත්‍ය රාජිත සේනාරත්න මහතා  හලාවතදී ධීවරයෙකුට වෙඩි තබා මරාදැමීම සම්බන්ධයෙන් බී.බී. සී. සිංහල සේවයේ වාර්තාකරුවෙකු ඇසූ ප්‍රශ්නයකට පිළිතුරු දෙමින් ප්‍රකාශ කළේය.  මෙලෙස ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ පොලිසිය […]

SRI LANKA: Vox Papuli, Vox Del

By Nilantha Ilangamuwa “As your attorney general I’m sorry to have to tell you that the present picture of crimes in the United States is far from good. In fact I would say it is shocking – particularly so in regard to the percentage of juveniles involved in law breaking”. Tom C. Clark, Former Attorney […]

NEPAL: Express concern about decaying rule of law framework, prevalent human rights violations, impunity during Nepal visit

An Open Letter from the Asian Human Rights Commission to the US Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights Maria Otero Under Secretary, Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights Department of State 2201 C Street NW Washington, DC 20520 United States of America Fax: + (202) 647-1579 Dear Ms. Otero, NEPAL: […]

SRI LANKA: A man is tortured by a senior police officer and the Attorney General is taking over a private plaint filed by the victim in order to protect the officer

Dear friends, M. Nishantha Fernando Jayawardena of Panadura in Kalutara district was assaulted by the Superintendent of Police (SP) for Panadura, Lesly Hamilton Gregory Cooray on 4 June, 2010 when he went to answer a query. For no reason at all the SP grabbed Nishantha’s shirt collar and struck him on his chest and face. […]

SRI LANKA: Abductors threaten the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka

An Open Letter from the Asian Human Rights Commission to the Honourable Attorney General of Sri Lanka The Honourable Shanthi Eva Wanasundara Attorney General Attorney General’s Department Colombo 12 SRI LANKA Fax: +94 11 2 436421 E-mail: ag@attorneygeneral.gov.lk Dear Ms. Wanasundara, SRI LANKA: Abductors threaten the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka We wish to bring […]

PAKISTAN: Supreme Court failed to indict the military in contempt of court in the case of missing persons

In the case of the eleven missing persons, among them four have died in military custody due to systematic torture. The Supreme Court had ordered the military and its intelligence agencies, the ISI and military intelligence agency (MI) on February 2 to produce the remaining seven detainees before the court on February 10. However, this […]

BURMA: Prisoners released and others still detained

CAMPAIGN PAGE: FREE PHYO WAI AUNG http://www.humanrights.asia/campaigns/phyo-wai-aung  ——————————————————————— Dear friends, As has been widely reported worldwide, in January the government of Burma released from prison over 600 detainees, around half of who were political prisoners. Many of these people the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) had issued appeals for in the last few years. Although […]

PAKISTAN: The Ahmadiyya community has once again been targeted by banned terrorist organisations

The Ahamadiyya community, a minority religious community, is again facing systematic genocide from the militant religious groups in coming days particularly from the banned terrorist organizations that have made a joint strategy to force them to leave Pakistan. This campaign has been started from the garrison city of Rawalpindi, Punjab province, in the presence of […]

PAKISTAN: The courts and the government bear responsibility for extrajudicial killings in military torture cells

By Baseer Naveed The disappearances, killings in military detention centers and dumping of bullet-riddled bodies including torture marks on the bodies of the victims, by the spy agencies particularly by ISI and military intelligence are no longer a secret. This was exposed during the case of Abdul Saboor (29), which was taken in custody illegally […]

BANGLADESH: HR violations are evident

Dear friends, We wish to share with you the following editorial published by the Daily Star, an English-speaking national daily newspaper of Bangladesh, on 17 January 2012. The original editorial can be available for the readers at: http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=218604. Asian Human Rights Commission Hong Kong ————- An Editorial from the Daily Star forwarded by the Asian Human […]

PHILIPPINES: Temogen Tulawie case – prosecutors uses forced confessions as evidence

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is deeply concerned by the continued prosecution of Temogen “Cocoy” Tulawie, a human rights defender of Tausug roots (one of the indigenous Muslim tribes), and four of his co-accused, for charges of murder in connection with a bombing incident on May 13, 2009 in Patikul, Sulu. The evidence against them was […]

SRI LANKA: The New Year Wish List- 2012

All Sri Lankans will wish that the coming year will not be like the last one and, in fact, that it be different from previous years also, years in which deep insecurity has been prevailing due to the failure of the political system, resulting in serious problems in the legal system. People reduced to powerlessness […]

PHILIPPINES: Inability to protect has created a ‘parallel system’

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission on the Occasion of the International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2011 The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) today published its 25-page report containing its analyses on what it has observed as the irreparable ‘social and systemic impact’ of the ongoing violations of human rights in the […]

SRI LANKA: International human rights agencies failed to notice the collapse of the Sri Lanka’s public institutions of justice

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission on the Occasion of the International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2011 The international community, including leading human rights agencies and organisations, has failed to understand the depth of collapse of rule of law in Sri Lanka and have failed to make any effective intervention in this […]

BURMA: Abuses remain “systemic, entrenched”, AHRC warns

(Hong Kong, December 9, 2011) Despite signs of political change and the easing of restrictions on freedom of expression in Burma, rights abuses remain “systemic, deeply entrenched and vast in scale”, the Asian Human Rights Commission said today in its annual State of Human Rights in Asia report.   The 17-page Burma report, entitled “From blinkered […]