AHRC News

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SOUTH KOREA: Prosecutor deprives defendants of opportunity to fair trial

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AHRC-STM-137-2009 June 17, 2009 A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission SOUTH KOREA: Prosecutor deprives defendants of opportunity to fair trial It is well known that th...

SRI LANKA: Registers on entry and leaving of internally displaced persons needs to be created urgently to prevent forced disappearances

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AHRC-STM-135-2009 June 16, 2009 A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission SRI LANKA: Registers on entry and leaving of internally displaced persons needs to be created urg...

CAMBODIA: Judicial independence is the key to reducing defamation lawsuits against critics and upholding freedom of expression

Prime Minister Hun Sen is utilising much of the country’s electronic media to assert his leadership of the country and send out messages to his people through his public speeches at different functio...

SRI LANKA: New Chief Justice Asoka de Silva welcomed by Bench and the Bar

(The new chief justice Asoka de Silva was welcomed by the Bench and the Bar on 11thJune at the Superior Court Complex at a ceremonial sitting. The address of the Chief Justice Asoka de Silva to the au...

CAMBODIA: Phnom Penh Municipality’s impossible requirement for holding forum violates freedom of assembly

Over the recent months, a human rights NGO, the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights (CCHR), has been making arrangements to hold a public forum for concerned officials and residents of Boeung Kak Lake i...

THAILAND: Prosecution of Tak Bai killers must now begin

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is writing to you following the inquest findings of a court in Thailand issued on 29 May 2009 that the deaths of 78 men in Narathiwat in October 2004 was a res...

SRI LANKA: Crimes, dengue fever, attacks on journalists, problems of toilets and food and euphoric celebrations

Basil Fernando Ankubura Seelaratne is a 25-year-old Buddhist monk who with youthful exuberance was engaged in campaigns to eliminate the sale of illicit liquor. Last week he was hospitalised in a crit...

SRI LANKA: The need to set aside the blatantly wrong conviction of Anthony Fernando

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AHRC-STM-133-2009 June 9, 2009 A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission SRI LANKA: The need to set aside the blatantly wrong conviction of Anthony Fernando With the retir...

SRI LANKA: An Open Letter to Mr. Ban Ki-Moon by Fr. Tissa Balisuriya and a reply by Basil Fernando

(Fr. Tissa Balisuriya, chairperson of the Centre for Society & Religion, Sri Lanka, has sent to the AHRC an open letter which he has written and which was published earlier by the Sunday Island wi...

CAMBODIA: The government must ban social control that violates human rights

Cambodian society was under communist rule for some 15 years before the international community helped it to embrace liberal, pluralistic democracy with rule of law and respect for human rights at the...

SRI LANKA: Justice and the rooster coop

(This article is published on the occasion of the retirement of the Chief Justice, Sarath Nanda Silva’s, who is due to leave office on the 7th June. The article examines the fundamental failure ...

PAKISTAN: One Ahmadi trader killed while another escapes from attempted beheading by fundamentalists

The targeted killing of members of the Ahmadi community, a minority sect of Islam, is continuing in the Punjab province. In the latest incident, Mian Laiq Ahmad, 54, a well known Ahmadi trader in Fais...

INDIA: Tribes, living in stigma and starvation

Sixty-two children have died of malnutrition in Khalwa Block of Khandwa district since May 2008. They were all from the Korku community, a tribe about which the outside world knows very little. There ...

PHILIPPINES: List of targets exposes activists to abduction, killing

When the 67-page PowerPoint presentation containing the list of 105 names of persons, including lawyers, union leaders, religious leaders, human rights and political activists, appeared in public af...

SRI LANKA: More journalists harassed

The investigation into the assault on journalist Poddala Jayantha took a new turn when the police arrested and interrogated another journalist who provided the initial information about Mr. Jayantha&#...

SRI LANKA: Journalist attacked – a civil society organisation threatened and a provocative campaign against freedom of expression continues

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AHRC-STM-125-2009 June 2, 2009 A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission SRI LANKA: Journalist attacked – a civil society organisation threatened and a provocative campai...

CAMBODIA: The government should heed UN human rights recommendations

Very recently the Cambodian authorities spurned the recommendations made by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights following its review of Cambodia’s implementation of the Inte...

PAKISTAN: Government intends to use force against the people of Gilgit and Baltistan under the pretext of eliminating the Taliban

A recent announcement of the Pakistan Army and its intelligence agency (ISI) stated that the Taliban are taking shelter in the Gilgit and Baltistan areas. They are a disputed part of Jammu & Kashm...

SRI LANKA: Justice and the media in peril — Asian Human Rights Commission

Basil Fernando Sri Lanka’s justice system, legal profession and media are all under peril says a report published this week by the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute(I...

SRI LANKA: Dengue fever and dysfunctional democracy

Basil Fernando 80 persons have died of dengue fever recently. Over 5,000 people are infected and there are fears that of further spread of the virus. The president has asked the authorities to pay mor...