AHRC News

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ASIA: Vitriolage — the horror and injustice of acid attacks

Baseer Naveed and Stewart Sloan “Acid will be thrown on the faces of women and girls who step out of their houses without covering their facesÂ… People who fail to comply with these orders will ...

PHILIPPINES: Negros and its people through my eyes–language is their freedom (Part 3)

Danilo Reyes The island of Negros is divided into two dominant languages–Cebuano in the east and Hiligaynon in the west. The accent, words and the meaning of the spoken word in these languages i...

SRI LANKA: How genuine will be the proposed Commission for Reconciliation?

We have cautiously welcomed the announcement by the Presidential Media Unit about the appointment of a commission of inquiry into the recent conflict from the perspective of restorative justice. In ou...

PAKISTAN: The Air Force is running a torture cell at its Air Headquarters where six members of a Christian family were tortured, a girl lost her legs

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received a report of the torture of six persons from a Christian family by officials of the Pakistan Air Force. The arrest and torture continued for a peri...

SRI LANKA: A new commission for restorative justice to deal with difficult past practices of abuse and violence

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AHRC-STM-072-2010 May 7, 2010 A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission SRI LANKA: A new commission for restorative justice to deal with difficult past practices of abuse ...

PHILIPPINES: Negros and its people through my eyes–control begins at childhood (Part 2)

Danilo Reyes From the moment a child is born into a family of sugarcane workers he becomes an object of control in his society, community and even in his own family. For such a long time now the lives...

SRI LANKA: The Asian Human Rights Commission cautiously welcomes the move for the appointment of a commission for truth and reconciliation

The AHRC cautiously welcomes the announcement of the appointment of a commission to probe violations of internationally accepted norms of conduct during the final stages of the conflict and the circum...

SRI LANKA: President to take over Attorney General’s Department will further damage the rule of law

According to a report in the Daily Mirror newspaper today (May 4, 2010) there are moves to bring the Attorney General’s Department under the direct control of the president. A gazetted notice to...

SRI LANKA: Samples of brutality that happened in the late eighties

MCM Iqbal, Secretary to several commissions of inquiry in Involuntary Disappearances recalls some of narratives of cases told by witness before the commissions. This is from a taped interview with Bas...

PHILIPPINES: Negros Island and its people through my eyes (Part 1)

Danilo Reyes I am not a Negrense, a term that refers to the inhabitants of the island of Negros. I am a Filipino but have never been to Negros until recently. While I can speak Cebuano, the language s...

PAKISTAN: Religious minority women, the forgotten victims of a fragmented society

Juliette Thibaud At the crossing of the multiple divisions and fractures which fragment the Pakistani society, Christian, Hindhu and Sikhs, women suffer one of the heaviest burdens of all the marginal...

SRI LANKA: If Sri Lankan Tamils had an Ambedkar

Basil Fernando Over the years, Sri Lankan Tamils have had leaders such as J.V. Chelvanayagam, G.G. Ponnambalam, Appapillai Amirthalingam, Velupillai Prabhakaran and Karuna Amman to name a few. The fir...

SOUTH KOREA: 2010 Gwangju Asian Human Rights Folk School

from the May 18 Memorial Foundation in South Korea.   Asian Human Rights Commission Hong Kong   ————- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   AHRC-FST-033-2010 May 01, 2010 &nbs...

SRI LANKA: Peoples anger against bad policing and governments excuses

A few days ago a large group of people protested at Annamaduwa against the officers of the local police stations against the killing of one of the young people from the village. No one has been arrest...

SRI LANKA: The IGP must explain the circumstances of Prageeth Ekanaliyagoda’s disappearance

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AHRC-STM-067-2010 April 27, 2010 A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission SRI LANKA: The IGP must explain the circumstances of Prageeth Ekanaliyagoda’s disappearanc...

PAKISTAN: Frontier Corp makes missing persons a marketable commodity

A man named Murad Khan Marri was arrested near his house on June 27, 2009. Since then he was kept incommunicado in secret detention and was thought to have disappeared. His name was entered into the o...

PAKISTAN: A man who was disappeared twice and severely tortured has finally appeared in court

Murad Khan Marri, 45, who was held incommunicado on two occasions, first, for a period of nine months after he was arrested by the Frontier Corp (FC), for the murder of Chinese engineers, holding Indi...

BURMA: Elections without speech

When the military government of Burma passed five new laws and four bylaws during March in preparation for planned elections later this year, it attracted a lot of interest, discussion and analysis in...

BURMA: A human rights defender targeted by medical doctors

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received a copy of a letter from a human rights defender in Myanmar (Burma), a copy of which has also been addressed to you. As the letter may not have bee...

THAILAND: URGENT–Further bloodshed must be avoided at all costs

This evening, April 21, there are many disturbing reports of a possible new attack to disperse anti-government protestors that have continued to assemble in Bangkok, calling for the unelected premier,...