Judicial system

BURMA: Three children among six females imprisoned with hard labour

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned that three girls in Burma have been sentenced to a year in jail with hard labour for allegedly selling illegal lottery tickets. When the case against them came to court, the judge reportedly ignored evidence given that the three girls are not yet 16 years […]

BURMA: Five men are charged without evidence for allegedly forming an illegal group

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has obtained the details of yet another group of people in Burma who have been charged without evidence for alleged anti-government activities. Five young men have been accused of setting up an illegal group and trying to contact other groups based in Thailand. There is no actual […]

UPDATE (Burma): Human rights defenders are among those released from jail

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is pleased to let you know that a number of human rights defenders on whose behalf we have campaigned in recent years have been released from imprisonment in Burma, as well as some of those who were involved in the September 2007 protests.  DETAINEES RELEASED:  The AHRC […]

UPDATE (Burma): Further information on the imprisonment of Mar Mar Aye

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has obtained further and more detailed information on the case of Ma Mar Mar Aye, on whose imprisonment we recently issued an appeal. According to this information, the primary reason for her imprisonment was not the T-shirts that the police removed from her house, as previously reported, […]

UPDATE (Burma): Two journalists among prisoners released from jail

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is pleased to inform you that two journalists who had been imprisoned in 2008 for helping cyclone victims to contact international agencies have been released from prison. CASE DETAILS: As per our appeal in April (AHRC-UAC-033-2009), 24-year-old Ma Eint Khaing Oo and 29-year-old Ko Kyaw Kyaw Thant, […]

BURMA: Woman imprisoned after one-day trial for having some T-shirts

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has obtained information on another recent case of gross injustice and denial of fundamental rights in Burma, this time arising from possession of some T-shirts. Police arrested Ma Mar Mar Aye at her house in August after misleading her into thinking that she would come back home […]

SOUTH KOREA: Institutional review on declining rule of law required — Asian Human Rights Commission

While the country faced two unexpected deaths of former presidents this year, which have been commemorated nationwide, the deaths of five men in the process of forcible dispersal by the police which took place in January 20 in Youngsan-4ga, Seoul have been forgotten by the people and are no longer discussed by the media due […]

PAKISTAN: Newspaper advertisements call for the murder of a human rights lawyer in Punjab; police silently spectate

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a human rights lawyer who offers free legal counsel to victims of the country’s harsh blasphemy laws, has escaped an attempt on his life and is receiving continual death threats from Muslim fundamentalist groups. Local police officers have repeatedly rebuffed his requests for […]

UPDATE (Bangladesh): An officer accused of torture keeps his post and is using it to intimidate victims and witnesses

Dear friends, Though the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is pleased to note the start of a long-awaited investigation into the illegal arrest and torture of a rickshaw puller and a day-labourer after an Urgent Appeal was issued, the investigation is seriously flawed. The torture took place at Paikgachha police station in 2008 and the […]

BURMA: Monk falsely accused of planning to set fire to himself

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has obtained detailed information about the case of a monk in Burma who is being tried without evidence for insulting religion. The monk, U Sandadhika, went like other onlookers to the outside of the court where Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her co-defendants were being tried […]

BURMA: Four men tried for having stickers of Aung San Suu Kyi

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has been informed of an ongoing case in Burma in which four men are being tried for having stickers of Aung San Suu Kyi. The men were arrested without basis and it was reportedly only after entering their houses that the police seized the stickers and accused […]

SRI LANKA: Panadura North Police fabricate charges against a man, who is later tortured by Kalutara prison guards

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a man was taken to court by the police and remanded for 18 days on tenuous grounds, with limited and fabricated evidence. The case is one of many received by the AHRC that illustrates gross misconduct, both by officers who wish to boost […]

PAKISTAN: A Norwegian citizen and Baloch activist is missing after his suspected abduction by Pakistan state agents

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned that a Norwegian citizen and political activist of Iranian nationality has been forcefully abducted from a bus between Balochistan province and the Sindh province capital, Karachi. Eyewitnesses described his abductors as armed, plain-clothed and in a fleet of four-wheel jeeps bearing no registration number, but […]

SRI LANKA: Two men are shot, illegally detained and charged with a fabricated offence by Urubokka police

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information regarding the botched arrest and shooting of two men by Urubokka police officers, who then fabricated their charges. The Assistant Superintendent of Police admitted that they were innocent in the Magistrate’s Court, however the officers responsible have not yet been investigated for misconduct.  CASE […]

UPDATE (Burma): Three innocent men are tortured into confessing to a bomb plot

Dear friends,  Last year the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) issued an urgent appeal in the case of U Myint Aye, the leader of the Human Rights Defenders and Promoters group in Burma whom police and other officials arrested without giving a reason. Later the military regime there organised a press conference in which it […]

UPDATE (Sri Lanka): A police officer on trial for the murder of Gerald Perera remains in service at Gampaha Police Station

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) would like to report that a police inspector being tried for the assassination of Gerald Perera is still working for the state as an officer. The victim was a complainant in a torture trial against police officers when he was shot dead. With one of the accused […]

BURMA: Two elected MPs given 27 years for writing letter to UN

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) regrets to have to inform you of yet another case of gross injustice and denial of human rights in Burma through that country’s “injustice system”. In this case, two elected parliamentarians have been sentenced to 27 years in jail each for organizing a group of their peers […]

UPDATE (Thailand): Landmark trial to begin of policemen who illegally arrested and dispersed protestors six years ago

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has been informed that the provincial court in Songkhla, Southern Thailand is set to hear the case against a group of policemen on 24 June 2009, after pending for six years. It is a landmark complaint—the first ever to be filed against policemen in the country—and has […]

BURMA: Licences of lawyers revoked for merely representing their clients’ wishes

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has previously reported on the case of two human rights lawyers who were sentenced to four months’ imprisonment each for contempt of court, because they withdrew their powers of attorney on the wishes of clients who cited the reason as a lack of faith in Burma’s judicial […]

BURMA: Case against Aung San Suu Kyi exposes ‘injustice system’

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has been closely following the case against Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and three other persons since their arrest in May 2009, which is a clear product of what has been described as Burma’s ‘injustice system’. In this appeal we give some basic details of the case […]