Right to life

Dear Friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information about a minor girl and her mother being set on fire after their being gang-raped by three men. The girl, who suffered 90% burns, died the following day in hospital, while the mother has survived her 60% burns, regaining consciousness from coma after 26 […]

Dear Friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received updated information from Defend Job Philippines about the planned relocation of the victims of Parola Compound Fire. The National Housing Authority is planning to relocate 1,000 families to places located faraway from their sources of livelihood in Parola, Tondo. The AHRC has also learned that […]

On March 24, pictures of four detainees, one of them a woman, with their hands chained and padlocked together, circulated online. The photos were taken by Bong Son, a newspaper photographer, while the detainees were being transported to another detention facility in Manila City. Photo: GMA News screen grab In response to public condemnation, Senior […]

Discrimination based on caste practices, including untouchability, is a deep and unhealed wound in India’s collective conscience. Caste-based prejudices adversely affect an estimated 160 million Indians. Despite a constitutional injunction and legislations that seeks to prohibit caste-based discrimination, the practice continues in India. Most tribal communities in the country also face discrimination that has its […]

By Avinash Pandey  The Supreme Court’s scrapping of Section 66 A of the Information Technology Act for being “unconstitutional in entirety” is indeed a great moment in the life of the democracy. The Act did, in fact, invade citizenry’s right of free speech “arbitrarily, excessively and disproportionately”. However, is this really a moment to celebrate […]

In this week’s Roundup, AHRC TV covers stories from Burma, the Philippines, and Pakistan. Police and mob violence against peaceful demonstrators in Burma has sown doubt about the democratisation process in the country. AHRC TV talks to several people on the ground about recent crackdowns in Rangoon and Letpadan and whether police are continuing to […]

March 24 marks the fifth annual International Day for the Right to Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims. The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed this day in 2010 to honor the memory of victims and recognize the work of countless human rights activists around the world who have devoted […]

Dear Friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that human body parts have been found scattered in several parts of Sri Lanka between 14th March and 18th March 2015.  Dematagoda, Nawala, and Diyawanna Oya near Parliamentary Complex are the sites in Colombo where the body parts have been found. Yatiyantota and the […]

by Avinash Pandey While the whole country was celebrating Holi, a joyous festival of colours, three farmers that were contemplating suicide in the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh went ahead and took their own lives. One of them, wearing the same colour soaked dress he had celebrated the festival in, hung himself to a tree. […]

Over the last week Burma, or Myanmar, has witnessed the re-emergence of some of the most sinister methods of handling public demonstrations in its modern history. The police and civilian attack mobs have violently broken up demonstrations of workers and students in the former capital, Rangoon (Yangon), and the town of Letpadan to its north. […]

On December 10, 2014, we wrote about Renante Gamara, a labour activist, who was tortured and detained on fabricated charges. He was expecting a decision from the Regional Trial Court (RTC) in Taguig City on his pending appeal to have charges against him dismissed. Gamara was arrested on April 3, 2012 in Las Pinas City, […]

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from Defend Job Philippines about a blaze in Parola Compund, Binonda, Manila, which has displaced thousands of urban poor. The AHRC urges the government of Philippines to ensure all assistance to the community and rehabilitate them as quickly as possible.  CASE NARRATIVE: A fire that broke […]

8th March is celebrated across the world as the international women’s day, yet many women in Pakistan remain oblivious to the significance of this day. In 2014, the World Economic Forum ranked Pakistan as the second worst country in the world in gender equality. The report measured the size of gender inequality in 142 countries in […]

On Monday, 23 February 2015, at 1 pm in the Criminal Court on Ratchadaphisek Road in Bangkok, the court will read the verdict and sentence Patiwat Saraiyaem and Pornthip Munkhong. They were formally charged on 25 October 2014 with one count of violating Article 112 of the Thai Criminal Code in relation to the performance […]

The academic activities of the Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science & Technology (FUUAST), where 13,000 students are enrolled, are severely affected by the defunct vice chancellor and suspended registrar who have filed cases against 14 teaching staff. Besides cases, the suspended registrar has issued, on three different occasions, the show cause notices to chairman […]

A Press Release from Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) forwarded by the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) KARACHI, Feb. 16: A civil society gathering has demanded the government that the Punjab University should be renamed as Dr. Abdus Salam University and Peshwar University as Malala Yousufzai University. Civil society of Karachi, in collaboration with Shaheed Zulfiqar […]

Women and minorities are the most marginalized faction of the Pakistani society; the Muslim majority is increasingly being intolerant towards people professing religion other than Islam. In a recent case of increasing rape incident of Christian girls, as reported by British Pakistani Christian Association, two minor Christian girls from Jaranwala, Punjab, Farzana aged 14   and […]

“The idea that after the fall of the USSR we would have this liberal democracy spreading around the world was of course naive but, in many cases, these are issues of power. We have a Western elite that isn’t really interested in democracy unless its friends win. Otherwise, they are happier with a dictator whom […]

The 67th anniversary of the declaration of independence will take place as a hopeful event. The defeat of the repressive and corrupt Mahinda Rajapaksa regime and the resolution of the crisis of judicial independence that was caused by the illegal removal of Dr. Shirani Bandaranayake from the post of Chief Justice have created this environment. That […]

This week’s episode of Weekly Roundup brings you stories from across Asia The episode begins in Sri Lanka where the former Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake is being reinstated and the recent de facto Chief Justice Mohan Peiris has been ousted; a victory for the return to rule of law. AHRC TV then turns to Bangladesh where the […]