Indigenous people

[NOTICE: The AHRC have developed a new automatic letter-sending system using the “button” below. However, in this appeal, we could not include e-mail addresses of many of the Cambodian authorities. We encourage you to send your appeal letters via fax or post to those people. Fax numbers and postal addresses of the Cambodian authorities are attached below with […]

[RE: UP-122-2006: INDIA: District Magistrate orders the arrest of a human rights defender for the second time; UA-156-2006: INDIA: District Magistrate orders the arrest of a human rights defender; AHRC-OL-048-2006: INDIA: Inquiring officer of Uttar Pradesh Human Rights Commission must inquire impartially into cases rather than trying to broker for respondents] —————————————————— INDIA: Misuse of authority; lack of […]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  AS-236-2006 October 5, 2006 A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission BANGLADESH: What is really needed to maintain law & order The Daily Janakantha newspaper on October 4 quoted the Bangladeshi State Minister for Home Affairs, Lutfuzzaman Babar, as saying that, “This is our country. We shall not withdraw the RAB […]

[RE: UP-013-2006: BANGLADESH: Three persons tortured by the Chapainawabganj police; UA-041-2006: BANGLADESH: Eight people killed and at least one hundred injured by police fire in Chapainawabganj district; UA-013-2006: BANGLADESH: Two people killed and thirty-five injured by police fire in Chapainawabganj district] ———————————– UP-016-2006: BANGLADESH: Three detained and tortured leaders have been released from prison in […]

[RE: UP-43-2005: SAUDI ARABIA/SRI LANKA: Questions remain in Sri Lanka’s willingness to save three of its citizens; UP-39-2005: Three Sri Lankans face imminent execution in Saudi Arabia; UP-38-2005: SAUDI ARABIA/SRI LANKA: Please send a letter to the King of Saudi Arabia urging his intervention to commute the death sentence of three Sri Lankans; UP-34-2005: Death […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received updated information regarding 73 workers from the Orex Factory in Ekala, Jaela, Sri Lanka, who were unlawfully dismissed after the owner arbitrarily closed down the factory in 2002. The AHRC previously reported that the owner, Mohamed Mohamed Izzath deprived his workers of the Employees Trust […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information through its local partner MASUM in West Bengal that Mr. Gopen Sharma, a human rights activist was illegally detained, threatened and assaulted by the officers at the Block Development Office in Jalangi, Murshidabad District, West Bengal. Mr. Sharma was, at the time of the […]

[Re: UA- 50 -2005: INDIA: Three and a half year wait for justice for the brutal murder of an Adivasi (tribal person) by a forest official in Gujarat] Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information on the case of Manishbhai Motibhai Vasava (30), an adivasi who was murdered by an Indian […]

Update on Urgent Appeals: UA-35-2003: Two hundred Adivasis made homeless over land rights; UP-32-2003: Enquiry into the shooting of Adivasis in 2001; UP-34-2003: Landless people stand firm against continuing government attacks; UP-40-2003: Hunger strike of Adivasis calling for right to land and UP-13-2004: Please send a letter to the Chief Minister of Maharashtra calling for right to land for Adivasi […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a man named Heeralu Mohottalalage Punchi Banda (39) was illegally arrested and tortured by the Sub Inspector (S.I.) Dhammika Bandara of Samanalaweva Police Post in Balangoda on 26 August 2004. Due to brutal torture, the victim still suffers from severe pain on his […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a 30-year-old woman named Ms. Hidayat was allegedly killed by her husband, Mr. Momin Ali Mahar in Dal village, Lakhi Ghulam Shah Town, Shikarpur District, Sindh Province, Pakistan on 29 February 2004. The case was registered at the Chak Police Station. However, a human […]

Dear friends, We need your solidarity urgently for the Adivasis people! The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that the Adivasis people are on a hunger strike continuously at the Rahata Tahasil office from 6 October 2003, demanding their rights of land ownership. Only four Adivasis are sitting for hunger strike because of […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has recently communicated with John P. Abraham, who is involved in the campaign for the rights of the indigenous Adivasi tribals in India. The Adivasi people have been fighting the Maharashtra State Farming Corporation (MSFC) for their rights over disused land that they have occupied in recent […]

Dear Friends Further information has been forthcoming from Mr John P Abraham, who, despite threats to his life, continues to campaign for the rights of the indigenous adivasi tribals in India. A judicial enquiry into the police firing of 2001 has begun. A full background to events is below: BACKGROUND: On 19 June 2001 a […]

Dear Friends The controversy over the large dams project on the River Narmada has come to symbolise the struggle for a just and equitable society in India. We are forwarding updated information from the Narmada Bachao Andolan organisation regarding the forced displacement of indigenous groups by the Narmada Valley Development Plan. In brief, the Government […]

Dear Friends We are forwarding updated information from the National Centre for Advocacy Studies (NCAS), Pune, regarding a case of torture and brutal beating to death of an Adivasi tribal, leading to his death in Police custody on 15 June 2003. Below are background details, followed by more explicit details and a sample letter. BACKGROUND […]

Dear Friends On 21 July, about 100 police and the Maharashtra State Farming Corporation (MSFC) security personnel destroyed about two hundreds huts of adivasis – indigenous people – and more than thousand acres of crops. No notice was given to the people. Several hundred adivasi children and women have been rendered homeless. The adivasi people […]

Dear Friends Below is an urgent appeal we are forwarding from Task Force Detainees of the Philippines (TFDP). 115 indigenous people’s families have been rendered homeless after the Provincial Sheriff of Bukidnon forcibly evicted them from their homes in Mindanao on April 16, 2003. On behalf of these indigenous peoples facing displacement by Philippine authorities, […]

Richard Cook, Director of UNRWA operations in the West Bank: 
“The reports we are getting are of wholesale destruction of a kind more normally associated with natural disasters such as earthquakes…. We implore the Israeli authorities to open up the camp to allow our relief teams to help its desperate population.” 

The UN Commission on Human Rights, meeting in its 58th session, issued a press statement on 16th April including the following reference to the obstacles placed by ‘the occupying power’ to the proposed visit by the High Commissioner on Human Rights to the occupied Palestinian territories: