Rule of law

The incumbent President of the Court of Appeal, Justice S. Sriskandarajah, has passed away after a brief illness. He was appointed to appointed President of the Court of Appeal in 2011 after serving as a judge of the High Court and then as a judge of the Court of Appeal. He delivered a large number […]

The parents of Shiva Shankar Das (21) who was allegedly poisoned to death are still waiting for justice and compensation after two years. Shiva Shankar had a love affair with a 20-year old woman from a so-called ‘upper caste’ community and was allegedly poisoned by the girl’s relatives on January 30, 2012. The Jagaran Media […]

As Edward Snowden has continued to slowly release more information about the widespread intelligence gathering techniques of the National Security Agency (NSA), there have been more calls for him to be granted an amnesty and further calls for placing limits on intelligence gathering by the NSA and other intelligence agencies. Der Spiegel has reported that […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from the Forum for Protection of People’s Rights, Nepal (PPR Nepal) regarding the torture inflicted on a 13-year-old girl and her mother by Nepal police officers at the Area Police Office, Anarmani Jhapa district, the eastern region of Nepal. The police tortured the two […]

The AHRC releases today the 14th Episode, of the Human Rights Asia Weekly Round up  with special reports from India and Hong Kong. In this week’s programme we bring you a special report from India, on how humiliation and hunger continues in refugee camps in the Uttar Pradesh. Four months after the unprecedented riots that […]

The rape of a foreigner in the national capital, New Delhi, has placed India in disrepute, internationally. This incident comes just a year after a similar one shook the nation. The rape of a physiotherapy student had resulted in a nation-wide mass protest, provoked by the state’s incapacity to make the capital a safe place […]

Despite the political and social changes in Burma (Myanmar) of the last two years, police and soldiers continue to enjoy impunity for the murder and torture of civilians. Despite the constant efforts of the families of victims to obtain justice, the military and police institutions are resistant to efforts to have perpetrators in their ranks […]

The Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) and its sister organisation the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) are pleased to announce the online edition of a new publication: “The Law, Patriarchy and Religious Fundamentalism: Women’s Rights in Pakistan”. The publication counts a total of 254 pages which include the research conducted on the topic, a selection […]

The Military Special Command Unit 911 in Cambodia firing live ammunition at garment factory workers asking for the increase of the minimum wage has been internationally condemned. The firing led to the deaths of four persons and injuries to at least 39 more. Nonetheless, on a subsequent day, the military arrested 23 people, including human […]

Whether fully or partially responsible for a crime, whether involved or not in an offence, women in Pakistan frequently come off worst when it comes to punishment. Gender-biased practises and discriminatory attitudes have become social norms which have even gained the status of religious dictates. Islam, in its original doctrine and essence, promotes equal recognition […]

We, the Cambodian and International Civil Society Organizations represented in this statement, condemn the use of armed force and escalating violence against the Cambodian people. At the start of 2014, following three weeks of peaceful demonstrations in Phnom Penh, tensions increased dramatically as authorities brutally cracked down on garment factory workers, who were demonstrating for […]

Guwahati:  January 13, 2014 Interim Report: Introduction The insanity of the vicious and tragic violence over the years in India has always been masked and at the best ‘managed’ (read suppressed) by brute force and fear. There is no dearth of evidence to speak of the grave consequences on women and children in particular. The […]

The Asian Human Rights Commission has now released of the 13th episode of the Human Rights Asia Weekly Roundup. We start this episode with an extensive report from Assam, India. A government crackdown over the last few years labeled thousands of people living in Assam as “foreigners”, in a seemingly random fashion. Many have lost their […]

Shame shadows Bangladesh again. Numerous attacks have been waged on the Hindu community across Bangladesh in the wake of the January 5th general ‘election’. Houses and business establishments owned by Hindus have been targeted. Other ethnic and non-Muslim communities have also been attacked. Temples and religious sites have not been spared. Few hundred Hindu families have […]

The debates so far, concerning the arrest of an Indian diplomat in the US, on charges of visa fraud, have omitted the nature of the crime the officer has committed. The crime alleged against the officer, is that of furnishing false documents to obtain visa for a migrant labour to the US. Read with the […]

Press statement 9 January 2014 New laws to protect women bring no hope to victims of sexual violence in Assam exclaimed a shocked panel of Jury members at the Public hearing on sexual violence A two day State level Public hearing on sexual violence was organized by Women in Governance [WinG-India] in Guwahati on January […]

Press Release 6 January 2014 Following the unprecedented outbreak of riots in the rural areas of Muzaffarnagar, Shamli, Baghpat, Meerut and Saharanpur districts of Uttar Pradesh in the first week of September, tens of thousands of Muslim families have been living in relief camps for the last four months. However, over the past week, the […]

The AHRC also pays tribute to a police officer SSP Choudhry Aslam who was killed in a suicide attack by Taliban A 16 year old boy has saved the lives of 2000 fellow students and school staff by sacrificing himself by stopping a suicide bomber who came to blow the school and kill all the […]

In late December, just days after the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) claimed that the file for the case of the disappearance of Somchai Neelaphaijit had been lost, Niran Adulayasak, Director of the DSI Special Criminal Case Office 1 announced in a news report on Thai PBS that the file had been found (see AHRC-STM-242-2013 for analysis […]

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from CGNet Swara, an organization promoting community journalism in India, regarding the continuing occupation and use of educational institutions in Chhattisgarh by the Indian paramilitary. AHRC has learnt that two companies of the Border Security Force (BSF), deployed at remote Kodapakha village of Kanker district, about […]