Enforced disappearances and abductions

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission ASIA: Watershed legislation criminalising torture & custodial violence enacted in Bangladesh The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) congratulates the people of Bangladesh for the enactment of the Torture and Custodial Death (Prohibition) Act, 2013. The Jatiyo Shangsad (National Parliament) enacted the draft law, the Torture and Custodial Death (Prohibition) Bill, […]

Dear Friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) writes to inform you about the disappearance of a labour leader in Laguna. The victim disappeared on 27 August 2013 and his whereabouts remain unknown. He disappeared after sending an SMS to his colleague in which he said that he was being followed by persons whom he […]

Counting up to August 2013, as many as 126 extrajudicial deaths and over 400 disappearances have taken place in the Balochistan province of Pakistan. Violent killings and disappearance after arrest by authorities continues without relent. Most bodies, of those murdered extra judicially, have been found in the Balochi speaking districts of the province, particularly Quetta, […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is pleased to inform you that a man accused of repeatedly raping a teenage girl in Burma has, despite his efforts to destroy the case, been convicted. However, the court has imposed an inadequate sentence upon him, and activists in the country are calling for a stiffer […]

Download the full text of the report ( PDF) (Word) In her media statement from Colombo on 31 August 2013, Dr. Navi Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said, “I am deeply concerned that Sri Lanka, despite the opportunity provided by the end of the war to construct a new vibrant, all-embracing state, […]

Today, 30 August 2013, is the International Day of Victims of Enforced Disappearance. According to the UN Resolution A/RES/65/209 adopted in the Sixty-fifth Session of the General Assembly, the 30th day of August has been declared, and has been so observed since 2011, as the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearance every year. This Resolution […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received updated information regarding the extrajudicial killing of a student leader by persons from the intelligence agencies. A student leader, Afzal Panhwar, who remained in the custody of the security agencies for one year, was again arrested and within some hours he was shot dead by […]

(Hong Kong, April 10, 2013) A Burma-based lawyers group has released its findings on the Letpadaung land struggle in English. The 39-page illustrated report was submitted by the Lawyers Network (Myanmar) and the Justice Trust in February to the government’s investigation commission into events at Letpadaung, recounts the land struggle and subsequent crackdown on protestors. […]

Dear friends: The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information regarding the disappearance of Mr. Sapam Chaoba Singh, 32-years-old, from his home in Imphal West District. It is reported that Singh left home on the promise that he would obtain employment at a construction site. However, it is feared that Singh has fallen prey […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a 19-year-old tea vender was sodomised and poisoned, and that he later died in hospital. The rapists threw him in the mud after sodomising him, intending that he should die on the roadside. Police have still not arrested any perpetrator; instead, they have […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that military units have bombarded more than a dozen villages in three districts of Balochistan based on information about the presence of a guerilla fighter fighting for the independence of Balochistan. Independent sources claim that more than 50 persons, including women and children, were […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that the Sindh provincial government has not taken any action against police officers who killed two young persons in a police encounter to settle personal issues with a high ranking police officer. The government has also closed down the inquiry that it promised through […]

On the occasion of the International Human Rights Day, 10 December 2012, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) publishes its annual report on the State of Human Rights in Indonesia in 2012. The full report is now available for download at http://www.humanrights.asia/resources/hrreport/2012/ahrc-spr-006-2012.pdf  In the middle of 2012, Indonesia had its state of human rights reviewed by […]

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission on the occasion of the International Human Rights Day 2012 The full report is available for download at: http://www.humanrights.asia/resources/hrreport/2012/ahrc-spr-008-2012.pdf/view  The PPP-led government under President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Ministers Yousaf Raza Gillani and Raja Pervez Ashraf has made some effort to improve the protection of human rights […]

From 1962 there are literally thousands of people who have served sentences in Burmese prisons as political prisoners. The people resisted the military throughout this long period of about 60 years despite the ruthlessness with which the military dealt with every form of resistance. However there was continuous resistance and from one generation to the […]

In her presentation to the United Nations Human Rights Council at the Universal Periodic Review the Foreign Minister, Ms. Hina Rabbani Khar painted a rosy picture of the progress that Pakistan has made over the past four years. However, it was what Ms. Hina Rabbani Khar did not talk about that raised the ire of […]

(Hong Kong, November 14, 2012) The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has filed a petition to the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) yesterday, November 13, seeking the WGEID’s intervention in the case of disappearance of Mr. Mohammad Imam Hassan (Badal). Badal remains disappeared since the past eight months. His parents had […]

An Article by the Asian Human Rights Commission SRI LANKA: 1000 days after the disappearance of Pradeep Ekenailiagoda, Sandya writes to President Rajapakse Appeal on behalf of families of the disappeared in Sri Lanka to: His Excellency Mahinda Rajapaksha, President of Sri Lanka, Presidential Secretariat, Colombo 02 Hon. Chamal Rajapaksha, The Speaker of Parliament, Parliament […]

After a series of attacks on the judiciary the Mahinda Rajapaksa government is now reported to be engaged in preparing papers for the impeachment of the Chief Justice (CJ). While the accusation against the CJ is not known the determination of the government to impeach her has been highly publicised. The state media have been […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from local human rights organisation Odhikar that the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) caused a man to disappear. After his abduction, they ex-filtrated him from among a group of criminals. The reason for this was the failure of the family to pay bribes. Officers of the RAB-2 […]