AHRC News

The Sinhala and Tamil New Year used to be a time of recreation and relaxation for all the communities of Sri Lanka, more or less like Christmas time in the west, or Chinese New Year for the Chinese. H...

We reproduce below a letter written by an Attorney-at-Law, Mr. W.J. Basil Fernando, on behalf of Ms. Padma Wickramaratna, the widow of Gerald Perera. This letter sums up the grounds on which an appeal...

A week ago, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) issued an urgent appeal on the 27 March 2008 night time assault on a Rangoon street of 57-year-old human rights defender U Myint Aye, who had to re...

What if some one says that and asks you to disprove it?  Or, if a whole society or even a large part of it begins to believe in fact that two and two is five.  This may be dismissed by some as pure ...

Thirty nine (39) persons, mostly young people, remain missing after arrest during ; their whereabouts are unknown to their families. The state intelligence agencies are still operative in arbitrarily ...

Case against Makavitage Suresh Gunasena and five others vs. The State  We wish to bring to your notice that in the aforementioned case the High Court judge of Negombo acquitted the six accused in thi...

Gerarld Perera was a torture victim recognized by the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka.  Attorney General filed action against 6 police officers for the torture of Gerald Perera.  A week before Gerald Per...

No Indian can imagine “India without the caste system”. Is it possible to have an Indian society without caste system and other social evils?  In northern India, it is alarming to notice strong in-...

The Pakistan Rangers, a Pakistan army’s organization, has severely beaten and abused a professor of Karachi on the question of his identity. Dr. Riaz Ahmed, Assistant professor of  Applied Chemistry...

The announcement by the IIGEP of the ending of their involvement in the Presidential Commission of Inquiry to Investigate and Inquire into Alleged Serious Violations of Human Rights came yesterday (31...

According to recent press reports about 79 persons, both from the political arena and law enforcement agencies were killed in Karachi, Sindh province, during this month alone (March), when the assembl...

Between 22 and 27 March, two dead bodies were kept at the Kolkata Police Mortuary waiting for an inquest. The two persons, Mr. Paran Molla and Mr. Mohammad Shamim, reportedly died while in the custody...

A man, who alleged that he was severely beaten up by the police after he refused to pay a bribe of three valuable gems, was granted leave to proceed in a fundamental rights application by the Supreme ...

From March 18 to 22, seven alleged criminals were killed, including a 16-year-old boy, in separate shooting incidents reportedly perpetrated by men riding on motorcycles in General Santos City. The po...

“Except for the crime in question, Mr. R. K. Sharma was an asset to the nation…” The national media in India reported that this observation was made by the Additional Sessions Judge Mr. R...

In one of his two latest reports to the UN Human Rights Council, the Special Rapporteur on Myanmar (Burma) has written that: “The Special Rapporteur is seriously concerned at the continued misus...

The relatives of disappeared and missing persons in Pakistan will observe the Day of Missing People on March 23, 2008, a national day in commemoration of a Pakistani resolution adopted in 1940 in the ...

A few suggestions to remove ambiguities from the AHRC History is being made in the National Assembly of Pakistan. The Speaker was elected and the debates have already begun. True to the pledge given t...

In 1991, a law creating the People’s Law Enforcement Board (Pleb), an external disciplining mechanism of policemen, was enacted. Its board members, who have the power to conduct summary hearings...

A young woman of 18 years was abducted and gang raped continuously over a period of three days by the guards employed at the mausoleum of Mr. Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the Father of the Nation, known as &#...