Poverty & adequate standard of living

Dear friends, Over the years some rich and powerful people have illegally cleared different portions of woodlands that belong to the public domain so as to own the land cleared of forests as their private property. Recently the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Wild Life and Fishery has said that over 200,000 hectares of such woodlands […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) writes to inform you regarding fears of a possible escalation in violence as a result of ongoing fighting in the province of Maguindanao, Mindanao. At 9pm on June 28, around one hundred armed militias attacked a rebel claimed area in Sitio Lab, Barangay (village) Meta in Shariff […]

Throughout June, the authorities in Cambodia systematically used large numbers of police to attack the poor. Five cases included assaults on legally-demonstrating workers and evictions of large numbers of people from their houses to make way for big business.  On June 6, Keo Chutema, governor of the Municipality of Phnom Penh sent around 700 police […]

[RE: UA-148-2006: CAMBODIA: Poor tenants brutally forced out of homes; UP-108-2006: CAMBODIA: Inhumane treatment of poor tenants forcibly displaced; UP-116-2006: CAMBODIA: Misery of homeless tenants continues unabated] ———————————– CAMBODIA: Forced eviction; denial of right to housing; inhumane treatment ———————————– Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned that the Cambodian authorities are going […]

The numerous appointments to key national commissions by the executive president, contravening constitutional requirements, are a very clear indication of Sri Lanka’s drift from a law-based society to one in which the law plays a significantly reduced role.  While criticism against presidential actions has pointed to matters including the fact that no person is above […]

[Re: HA-01-2006: PAKISTAN: City Government forces eviction leaving thousands homeless and without food in Karachi; UP-073-2006: PAKISTAN: Violence imminent over Lyari Expressway construction in Karachi] ——————————————- UP-104-2006: PAKISTAN: Karachi Government has announced to make way for Lyari Expressway at all cost PAKISTAN: Forced eviction; right to housing; right to life; abject poverty ——————————————- Dear friends, […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) strongly condemns the brutal eviction and destruction of homes and property of over 1000 families by the authorities in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The eviction began on May 3 and has continued today, May 4. Humanitarian groups have been denied access to the evicted persons, who have been […]

Although a group of villagers–members of an indigenous community–in Cambodia’s northeastern province of Rattanakiri were told by local authorities that their lands were reserved for development, around 10 years later no development has yet taken place. Instead, without informing the villagers, the authorities conceded the lands to a businessman. This businessman, without securing a title […]

The Asian Human Rights Commission welcomes the landmark ruling by the Supreme Court of Nepal on Monday February 13, 2006, which declared the controversial Royal Commission for Corruption Control (RCCC) unconstitutional and ordered it to be scrapped immediately. This has paved the way for the release of ousted Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, who had […]

[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 […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information regarding the forced eviction of thousands of households in Rehmatya colony by Karachi City Government officials. The colony, which also houses one Hindu community, was destroyed without warning to make way for the construction of the Lyari Expressway. Only a small number of families […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from reliable sources about atrocities perpetuated by the local police in coalition with the district administration on villagers protesting against the construction of a dam under the Bhilangana Hydel River Project in Tehri Garhwal District, Uttaranchal. This river project has been contracted by the […]

[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 […]

[Re: HA-25-2005: Unfairly sacked farm labourers in Mindanao forced to eat poisonous frogs and corncobs due to abject poverty and lack of food] Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is pleased to inform you that the provincial and municipal office of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in Alabel, Sarangani province, […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received updated information that the local social welfare department in Davao City, Mindanao has failed the family of disappeared victim, Sabdurah Abdullah Ala. It was learned that although a personnel from the social welfare department, Alice Torejas, has interviewed Aminah Ala and her daughter Mirriam (13), […]

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 […]

The Philippines Commission on Human Rights (PCHR) is an independent body in the Philippines that has the authority under the 1987 constitution to initiate an investigation and make recommendations based on its findings. In its decision about the eviction of 157 families in the Dacudao Compound in Davao and the demolition of their homes on […]

Dear friends, Further to our Hunger Alert, HA-07-2005 issued on April 11, 2005, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) would like to provide you with the following pictures depicting the current living conditions of the adivasis living in camps under the Bardoli Sugar Factory in Surat, Gujarat. Urgent Appeals Desk — Hunger Alert Asian Human […]