Democracy

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 […]

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 […]

“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.” – Viktor E. Frankl1 High level military officials were […]

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 […]

On January 25, 2011, Nepal’s human rights record was reviewed for the first time under the Universal Periodic Review mechanism. That mechanism was established by the UN General Assembly on 15 March 2006 through resolution 60/251 to “review the fulfilment by each State of its human rights obligations and commitments.” On that occasion, peer countries […]

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 […]

Dear friends, We wish to share with you the following article from the Philippine Daily Inquirer, written by University of the Philippines (UP) Professor Raul C. Pangalangan. Asian Human Rights Commission Hong Kong ————- An article from the Philippine Daily Inquirer forwarded by the Asian Human Rights Commission We need to respond to the fear […]

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 […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that the Director General of the Inter Services Intelligence Agency, the country’s foremost intelligence agency, has hatched a conspiracy to overthrow the democratically elected government and parliament by taking help from some Arab monarchies who have strong influence in the affairs of the country. […]

The brother of a rape victim, Alamzeb Khattak, 25, a was shot dead on Friday, December 9, in the court premises of Peshawar, capital of Khyber Pakhtunkha province allegedly by relatives of police officials who were involved in the rape of a teenage girl. Uzma Ayub was repeatedly raped whilst being held captive by an […]

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 […]

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 […]

(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 […]

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission on the Occasion of the International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2011 The state of human rights in a country is directly proportional to the extent of justice achieved in that jurisdiction. Justice is not a physically quantifiable concept. It is “truth in action” as held by […]

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission on the Occasion of the International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2011 The full report is available for download at http://www.humanrights.asia/resources/hrreport/2011/AHRC-SPR-008-2011/view. The state has become dysfunctional in providing basic human rights to the people. Though the parliament exists it either cannot assert its constitutional duties or does not […]

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission on the Occasion of the International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2011 On the occasion of the International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2011 the AHRC is publishing the annual report on the State of Human Rights in South Korea in 2011. The full report is available […]

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission on the Occasion of the International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2011 International Human Rights Day is going to be ‘observed’ in Bangladesh amidst numerous victims facing gross abuses of human rights without an access to legal remedies from the existing criminal justice system. On the eve […]

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission on the Occasion of the International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2011 On the occasion of the 63rd Human Rights Day, the Asian Human Rights Commission is releasing its annual report on the state of human rights protection in Nepal through 2011. The report is available here. Given […]

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission on the Occasion of the International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2011 On the occasion of the International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2011 the AHRC publishes its annual report on the State of Human Rights in Indonesia in 2011. The full report will be made available […]

The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 (AFSPA) is a subject of severe criticism by human rights activists and jurists in India and across the world. The alarming number of human rights abuses committed by the security agencies deployed in regions where AFSPA is currently put to use is depressing proof to the draconian nature […]