Corruption

No questioning arises from subservient lips”. Andrée Chedid (For Rushdie) Ideally Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranaike would have prevented her husband from accepting Rajapaksa largesse; ideally. Ideally, the Supreme Court would have resisted the 18th Amendment; ideally. Ideally the term-limit provision would be in place and a post-Rajapaksa future just five years away; ideally. But as […]

Even the worst of criminals have a right to a fair trial before an independent judiciary. A judge in an impeachment proceeding in Sri Lanka does not have that right. Article 107 of the Constitution and the standing orders as they stand now preclude that right. Is the quality of citizenship of a judge of […]

SDPI’s study on poverty shows that every third Pakistani is living his life below the poverty line. This is very shocking revelation for all of us. About 58.7 million out of 180 million Pakistanis are living below the poverty line. This below the poverty line population is living 52% in Balochistan, 33% in Sindh, 32% […]

When I talked to a Sri Lankan friend about the killings of prisoners which happened yesterday and tried to convince him that people should demand justice, his instance reply was, “ Dhang justice naah” (now there is no justice) . In the past, this expression meant that there were serious concerns about justice. However, now it […]

Dear friends, We wish to share with you the following article from the Sunday Times, Colombo, Sri Lanka, written by Kishali Pinto Jayawardena Asian Human Rights Commission Hong Kong ————- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AHRC-FAT-039-2012 November 11, 2012 An article from the Sunday Times, forwarded by the Asian Human Rights Commission SRI LANKA: Shameful stifling of freedom […]

Yesterday (9th of October), at least 11 prisoners were gunned down and around 35 were injured by the STF. The shooting was carried out when the STF entered the Welikada prison for some inspections. (Photo Courtesy: Sunday Times, Sri Lanka) According to an eye witness, interviewed by the BBC Sinhala service, when some prisoners who […]

A comparison with the Titanic is most appropriate. Titanic at the time was thought of as a wonder ship that could never sink. It was not expected ever to perish. Sri Lanka also was considered a wonder. It was expected to be an example to other countries. It was expected to prove that democratization of […]

In yet another shocking revelation, private companies have been found to be engaged in stealing food earmarked for welfare schemes aimed at arresting malnutrition, the biggest ‘national shame’ according to the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and ‘humiliation like none other’ according to President Pranab Mukherjee. The only thing that is more shocking than the revelation […]

Under the present circumstances and under the 1978 constitution, when the president does not want the Chief Justice, the president just tells them to get out and go home. The way he does it is called impeachment proceedings. Once the president decides to file such proceedings – he has a two thirds majority in parliament […]

The Rajapaksha Regime, through its parliamentarians, handed over an impeachment motion to the Speaker, the elder brother of the President Rajapaksha against the first woman Chief Justice of the country. It appears that the Government of Sri Lanka is in a mighty hurry to “get rid of the Chief Justice” so that a major obstacle […]

For the United Nations Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on Pakistan, the country presented a four-year working report of how the government improved the state of human rights in Pakistan. Ms. Hina Rabbani Khar, the foreign minister leading the Pakistan delegation, presented the report to the UN. The UPR is a process in which the UN […]

  The statement by Mr. L. K. Advani, a leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that the country’s global image is at an all-time low is partially correct. It is reflected in manifold forms, including in the treatment Indians receive when they present their passport at the immigration counters in foreign nations and in […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from the Mapithel Dam Affected Villagers Organisation and the Committee on the Protection of Natural Resources in Manipur that the villagers of Riha, Thawai, Lamlai Khullen, Chadong along the Thoubal River in Ukhrul district, Manipur are likely to be evicted by force to complete […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from Sahyog, Support in Development about the death of 28 children belonging mostly to the Sahariya community; a scheduled tribe ravaged by malnutrition and diseases related to it. Most unfortunately, the deaths have occurred despite the administration being well aware of the situation. Hunger […]

The cabinet reshuffle in India has concluded. New Delhi has witnessed the usual exit and entry of old and new faces. While speculating, reporting and allegedly analysing the event, the Indian media liberally used words like “new blood”, “team Manmohan” and “fresh faces.” These terms wrongly suggested that something new is introduced into an alleged […]

The Mahinda Rajapaksa regime has resorted to the ugliest attack in Sri Lankan judicial history on the Supreme Court and the Chief Justice this week by using the state media as a slander machine and through employing the state media to introduce deliberately manufactured slanderous letters to the parliament solely with the purpose of abusing […]

If a police officer decides to make money illegally, what would the officer do? There are many ways the officer could think of, including but not limited to, seeking bribes, illegally registering and compromising cases, or collecting protection money from people and businesses. In all of this, irrespective of the mode, the officer is selling […]

The Supreme Court (SC) today ordered the government to take legal action against former army chief General Aslam Beg and the former director general of the Inter Intelligence Service (ISI) Lt-Gen (retired) Asad Durrani for distributing money during the elections of 1990 among some politicians in order to rig the elections. A three-judge bench comprising […]

This week and the last one have witnessed an overflowing of violence in India. It manifested in manifold shapes, colours, and intensity: permeating right from the gory incidents of rapes reported in the media to the sensational allegations of corruptions against the most powerful players in the country, the shameless circus-dog denials of political leadership, […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that two young women have been raped and one girl narrowly has avoided an attempted rape due to her neighbours’ assistance in three separate jurisdictions of the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh. The police have allegedly been biased against the non-ethnic settlers instead of […]