Rule of law

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from the National NGO Child Rights Coalition and local journalists about children housed in prison in Kokrajhar, Assam. The AHRC is concerned, as such an arrangement is denying children their basic rights. The children are being housed in prison not for any delinquency on their part […]

Bangladesh’s incumbent regime is forcing the nation to witness a fake ‘general election’, scheduled tomorrow, 5 January 2014. All the opposition parties, except the allies of the ruling regime, have boycotted this election. The government is accused of extreme politicisation of the country’s civil administration, along with the police, paramilitary agencies, and all key institutions, […]

Press Statement on the Report  prepared by Mohan Rao, Ish Mishra, Pragya Singh and Vikas Bajpai, December 30, 2013 A team of independent academics and a journalist carried out an inquiry into the communal violence that shook Muzaffarnagar district in UP this past September. The report is based on the findings of the team during […]

A one-and-a-half-year-old infant was buried four days after she died from pneumonia in Toba Tek Singh, Punjab province. The girl, who was from an Ahmadi family, died on December 19, and was taken for burial the following day. At the cemetery the local clerics gathered with approximately fifty men who were armed with sticks and batons. […]

The Asian Human Rights Commission welcomes Order No. 51/2013 of 30 December 2013 by the president of Burma (Myanmar), issuing a general amnesty for all persons imprisoned or facing trial or investigation for certain categories of political offences. The categories include persons accused or convicted of offences under the colonial-era Unlawful Associations Act, for charges […]

As I wanted to discuss many things, and as I found no one else to discuss these things with, I was happy to see you on a branch of a tree in our garden. I told myself, “Ah, here is someone I can talk to.” As I approached and greeted you, you nodded to me […]

Sabita Lahkar, a Guwahati based female journalist called for a press conference on September 10, 2003 demanding justice publicly for sexual harassment at workplace. She was working as the Chief Sub-editor at a vernacular daily Amar Asom. She alleged that her senior, editor in chief and a well known literary figure in the state of Assam […]

In the early morning of December 27, the authorities addressed a large crowd of people protesting outside Badureliya District Hospital. They had come to support a Member of Parliament who was staging a hunger strike demanding the reopening of the hospital. The authorities announced to the crowd that the hospital would be reopened the next […]

The Asian Human Rights Commission wishes to forward this statement regarding persons who chose to join the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam and the treatment they received thereafter. It is extremely perturbing that we have to bring to the notice of the world’s community the plight of two innocent, loyal citizens of Saudi Arabia who had […]

Dear friends,  We wish to share with you the following statement from the Think Centre, an independent non-governmental organisation (NGO) in Singapore. First registered as a business (RCB) on 16 Jul 1999 and today as a society (under ROS) on 20 Oct 2001, the Centre aims to critically examine issues related to political development, democracy, […]

The open debate about the denial of equality between men and women may be seen as historically recent. However, the reality of gender imbalance has been a factual data for centuries and unfortunately, when we look at countries like Pakistan, the journey towards gender equality appears to be a long and insidious odyssey. The relationship […]

The AHRC condoles the death of Mr. Khurshid Anwar, a writer and activist reputed for his life-long struggle for upholding the rights and dignity of the downtrodden, not only in India but the whole subcontinent. Unable to cope with the mental torture of relentless social media trial over a case of an alleged rape which […]

Mr. Ban Ki Moon Secretary General of the United Nations Office of the Spokesman for the Secretary-General United Nations S-378, New York, NY 10017 USA Fax: +1 212 963 7055 or 2155 An Open Letter to the UN Secretary General by the Asian Human Rights Commission Your Excellency, the Secretary General of the United Nations, […]

Following is an extract from the Pastoral Letter of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Sri Lanka, entitled ‘Towards Reconciliation and Rebuilding of the Nation’. In this exercise the independence of the Judiciary should be preserved and defended at all cost. The Judiciary which has the sacred role of interpreting and applying the meaning of a […]

Democracy and human rights were taboo under the military regime until the movement of democratisation which took place in 1987 triggered the 9th Amendment to the Constitution in the country. This Amendment guaranteed at least ‘procedural’ democracy. Those terms were released from constraints that had been kept for decades by the military forces. After they […]

Over the course of 2013 the Asian Human Rights Commission has followed reports of a larger number of conflicts over land grabs and attempted grabs in Burma, or Myanmar. Some of the conflicts are over recently taken land, and others are reinitiating struggles begun many years ago. These land grabs include the well-known expansion of […]

The case of human rights lawyer Somchai Neelaphaijit, whom police officers abducted and forcibly disappeared over nine years ago, took a new twist when the Department of Special Investigation claimed that its file on his case had itself disappeared during anti-government protests last week. According to Niran Adulayasak, Director of Special Criminal Case Office 1 […]

From Karachi to Islamabad a long march has started for the recovery of missing persons from Balochistan The Voice of Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP) has started the second phase of the Long March, this time from Karachi to Islamabad covering a distance of approximately 1,400 kilometers. The first phase of the March started on October […]

The health of Mr. Nanda Prasad Adhikari and Mrs. Ganga Maya Adhikari, parents to a murdered son, Krishna Prasad Adhikari, is deteriorating rapidly. According to doctors at Bir Hospital, having  resumed their hunger strike from their hospital beds, the Adhikari couple are now in critical condition. Maoist cadre allegedly killed Krishna Prasad Adhikari in 2004. […]

PRESS RELEASE December 13, 2013 Three (3) Muslim victims of arbitrary arrest and detention were released last December 10, 2013, Human Rights Day after the Taguig Regional Trial Court’s decision that they were victims of mistaken identity. Mujeener Dagam Cabalo and his two other co-accused were released from the Special Intensive Care Area of the […]