Police violence

UPDATED APPEAL (Pakistan): The family of a human rights lawyer and fatwa target is attacked; police continue to refuse protection

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has heard that the violent campaign waged by Muslim radicals against a human rights lawyer who defends minorities has intensified in Faisalabad.  It would also like to make an amendment to previously issued information, to note that while the Daily Pavel printed a fatwa that named advocate Rao […]

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 […]

SRI LANKA: The death of two girls in Colombo suggests foul play, yet police have quickly registered the case as suicide

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned that the bodies of two teenage Tamil girls were recently found in a Colombo canal. Police promptly filed the case as one of suicide, despite finding a suicide note with handwriting–according to the parents–of neither girl. There is also reason to suspect that their employers were breaking […]

CAMBODIA: A police officer has deliberately mishandled the case of a 15-year old rape victim due to his friendship with the rapist

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned that a Phteah Rong Commune police officer rejected the complaint of a young rape victim without investigating it, and humiliated the girl in the process. The case was only filed in court after pressure from a local NGO and there are serious concerns that the […]

PAKISTAN: The trade of justice continues as police protect ruling party members who are guilty of rape and maiming with acid

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received detailed information about a case of extreme violence, corruption and impunity involving members of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), a ruling partner of the Zardari government. Police and high ranking officials are continuing to thwart all attempts by a young rape victim to prosecute MQM […]

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 […]

INDIA: A lower-caste family faces social boycott to pressure them to leave

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from Navsarjan, a human rights organisation based in Gujarat that the only Valmiki (lowest Dalit sub-caste) family living in Shampara (also known as Khodiyar) village is in danger of being forced out from their home. This action is due to a boycott imposed on […]

INDIA: Authorities must do more for a 14-year-old girl who was raped then shot

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from QIC-AC Uttar Pradesh (QIC-AC UP), a human rights association that in Bahraich district a 14-year-old girl was sexually abused then shot by a member of a mafia. At the time, she was alone in her home as her only remaining family member, her […]

INDIA: Social ostracism against Dalits for refusing to dispose of dead animals

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from the Navsarjan Trust, a Gujarat-based human rights NGO, that there has been a social boycott put into place by the entire non-Dalit community against the Dalits of Nesda village. This was in response to the Dalits’ refusal to dispose of dead animals, a […]

PAKISTAN: A human rights activist faces terrorism charges for publicising the murder of Christians, while the mullahs who encouraged the violence remain free

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that an activist working for the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) and the Labour Party of Pakistan, has been arrested and remanded on charges of terrorism and disturbing the peace. The charges disproportionately refer to demonstrations he helped organise against the burning murders […]

INDIA: 35 Dalit families face a social boycott while the destruction of their burial ground goes unpunished

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned that all the lowest caste (Dalit) families in a Bhavnagar District village are living under boycott conditions, which deny them employment, access to water, the use of village shops or public roads, and any contact with non-Dalits. The boycott was started by Brahmins after Dalits […]

INDIA: Dalits face a social boycott for asserting their right to vote; most are forced to leave home

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned that 125 Dalit families have been forced to leave their village after they voted in the lower house parliament election. Earlier in the year upper-caste members had assaulted the village council head, a Dalit, when he refused to vote for their favoured candidate.  He registered […]

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 […]

PAKISTAN: Peasant activist targeted for exposing human rights violations of feudalism

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission has been informed that a peasant activist, who lives in Sindh Province, has received no protection or help from police despite being subjected to torture, countless threats, abduction and currently dispossession from his land by influential landowners; due to his human rights work in assisting those who remain […]

SRI LANKA: The Nikaweratiya Police use severe torture to extract a confession from an innocent man, then offer him a cup of tea; hospital staff proscribe paracetamol

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a father of three was arbitrarily picked up and tortured by police, first in a wood then at a police station, to force a confession of theft. They did not inform the family of his arrest and denied that he was being held […]

PAKISTAN: Police illegally arrest and continue to detain a shopkeeper cleared of blasphemy

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission has received information that a young Christian grocer has been wrongly arrested under the blasphemy law after another shopkeeper advised him to burn some old papers, then reported him for burning the Quran. The blasphemy law is regularly misused by people with vendettas against minority persons and police […]

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 […]

INDIA: Police in Gujarat support the beating and social exclusion of three Dalit families

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a local feudal leader and his family, the Khans, who control affairs in Ingoli village, Gujarat, are behind the social ostracism of three Dalit families. After a young Dalit man complained to the police of being beaten by a group of Khans, his […]

INDIA: Police must end their servitude to the politicians

Statement | India | 09-07-2009

The concern expressed by the Kerala State Police Officers’ Association regarding the safety of police officers in the backdrop of the recurring incidents of assaults upon police officers in the state is an issue of high concern. In a resolution drafted by the officers after holding a meeting yesterday at Thiruvanandapuram in Kerala state, the […]

PAKISTAN: The groom of a love marriage is unjustly jailed while his wife, father and brother are missing after their violent abduction by his in-laws

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission has learned that a young woman who married freely last summer remains missing, along with her husband’s father and brother, after they were seen being abducted in October last year. According to the groom’s family no investigation into their disappearance has been carried out. Before her abduction the […]