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Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) wishes to bring to your attention the killing of a police inspector and his wife following his alleged attempt to inquire into drug related crime...

Dear friends, In August 2004 the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) wrote detailing the torture of two boys by officers from the Ambalangoda police. The officers initially arrested the boys for alle...

Dear friends, We are reproducing the statement of an independent group who is calling for a discussion on “Saving Sri Lanka from the brink of disaster”. In the paper this group sets the pr...

In what amounts to a scandal concerning the manner in which President Mahinda Rajapaske has made appointments to the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, one of the nominees and well known human righ...

Dear friends, On 7 April 2006, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) reported how Kithsiri Dharawardena was brutally assaulted by about 100 inmates and trainees of the police training college in Ke...

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) expresses its concern of the failure of law enforcement officials to respond to complaints of domestic violence leading to wider measures of impu...

Sri Lankan newspapers have reported the drafting of a new law severely curtailing civil liberties and media freedoms. Conscription is one of the provisions of the draft law. Other provisions are expec...

Background: Sri Lanka’s past history of insulating its public service from political interference has not been admirable.?Framers of both the First Republican Constitution, (The 1972 Constitutio...

Under the Constitution of Sri Lanka, the executive president has not been given the power to select members of any of the commissions established or supervised by the 17th Amendment. The power of sele...

[RE: UA-75-2005: SRI LANKA: A woman’s baby is stillborn due to police torture; UP-75-2005: SRI LANKA: Police torturers who caused a woman’s loss of her unborn child must be brought to justice] ...

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learnt that the principal of St Mary’s School, Hambanthota has manipulated his authority to arbitrarily suspend pupils from school. Five sch...

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has come to learn of an appalling case of police brutality and torture of a man whom they accused of having stolen goods. When the man repeated t...

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information regarding the assault of a 14-year-old boy by a local businessman, who forced the boy to work for him on 29 April 2006, ...

AHRC-OL-013-2006 May 15, 2006      Open letter to the Attorney General The Hon. Mr. K. C. Kamalasabesan Attorney General Attorney General’s Department Colombo 12 Sri Lanka Fax: +94 11 2 436 ...

Dear friends, On 4 May 2006, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) informed our network about 18-year-old Samantha Perera, who was illegally arrested by the Bandaragama police, detained for four da...

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has come to learn of an attack on an editor of a local newspaper in Sri Lanka, following his attempt to report on illegal construction in his are...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 11, 2006 AS-105-2006 A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) SRI LANKA: Human Rights Council a new forum to discuss Sri Lanka’s human rights record An a...

The new Human Rights Council was elected on May 9, 2006. According to the General Assembly Resolution of April 3, 2006,  When electing members of the Council, Member States shall take into account th...

The electoral victory of Sri Lanka’s United National Party (UNP) in 1977 created what is now commonly known as ‘elective dictatorship’. This dictatorship was made permanent through t...

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned of a case in Sri Lanka involving a policeman and a home guard arriving at the home of a family in an inebriated state. They then accu...