AHRC News

A prisoner, Ganeshan Nimalarubin, died in prison custody. Allegedly he was a former LTTEr who had been prison custody for a long time undergoing rehabilitation. His death in the prison has given rise ...

The Government of Bangladesh plans to immediately arrest members of human rights organisations and activists suspected of providing information for the Human Rights Watch Report “Bangladesh: Torture...

An Open Letter from the Asian Human Rights Commission to Sr. Supt. Generoso Cerbo Jr., spokesperson of the Philippine National Police (PNP) Sr. Supt. Generoso Cerbo Jr. Spokesperson Philippine Nationa...

The Union Home Minister, Mr. P. Chidambaram, has said that he is “deeply sorry” for the death of any innocent person during the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) firing at Kotteguda panc...

Here is the statistics. Nothing less than 14004 farmers committed suicide in 2011 as per the data of the National Crime Records Bureau. That is more than 10.3 per cent of the total number of suicides ...

The killings of the Shiite Muslims continue un-abated in those areas under the control of the military and Para-Military forces where the banned Muslim organizations operate freely and without hindran...

One of the reactions to the earlier article, SRI LANKA: Defending the nation’s internal security, is “What’s wrong? The military has come to stay.” What is chilling is that it app...

In the previous article we discussed about the Ministry of Defense as the most important social institution of the country, next to the executive presidency and that the justification for this in ti...

Basil Fernando In a previous article, SRI LANKA: The Supremacy of the national security apparatus, we discussed the issue of the Ministry of Defence being the most important institution in Sri Lanka,...

Below is a letter written by Cambidian Ambassador for United Kingdom regarding an article written by Dr. Gaffar Peang-Meth published by the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC). It is one of many arti...

96 hours after the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) firing in Kotteguda panchayat of Bijapur district in Chhattisgarh state, the union government and the state government of Chhattisgarh are on def...

In the previous article SRI LANKA: Can the idea of nationalism be separated from the idea of justice? I discussed the idea that the state that exists in Sri Lanka now is a national security state. T...

According to reports the office of a well-known online daily newspaper based in Colombo, Sri Lanka is currently being raided. The raid is being conducted by dozens of security officers of the Ministry...

Perhaps one of the words that is most misused in the 20th Century is the word ‘nationalism’. Sri Lanka is no exception to this. Can the idea of a nation be separated from the idea of the s...

I was amazed at how quickly the pieces of Torture: Asian and Global Perspectives fell into place, turning an idea for a magazine into a quality, finished product. When Nilantha Ilangamuwa, whom I’...

Full text of the speech delivered by Nilantha Ilangamuwa at the event jointly organised by the Asian Human Rights Commission and the University of Hong Kong on Freedom of Expression and torture preven...

A few decades ago, Sri Lanka’s criminal justice system was organised on the basis of the Penal Code, the Criminal Procedure Code and the departmental orders of the police. The Penal Code defines...

Yesterday the world celebrated the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. Ironically, it was also yesterday the Government of Kerala reinstated nine police officers to office following th...

We reproduce below the section on Sri Lanka from the Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Frank La Rue. The Report was su...

In the public discussions recently, particularly on the occasion of erecting a statue for Baratha Lakshman Premachandra, there has been several references to the need for electoral reforms. Even the L...