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There is serious concern about the conduct of the judiciary in Pakistan. In a country where all manner of informal justice mechanisms, based on tribal and religious norms dispense arbitrary and discri...

Basil Fernando The groups engaged in monitoring the election have reported flagrant violations of election laws, the illegal use of state assets and the use of violence. They have noted that in Sri La...

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a young deaf girl has been missing since June 2006 and that police have refused to investigate the case; instead ...

The presidential election will take place on the 26th of January. The campaign leading to the election took a bloody turn yesterday (13th of January 2010) with the killing of Kusumawahi Kurupuarachi a...

The killing of even one person signals a turn for the worst in the presidential election in Sri Lanka. The attack on the bus carrying the supporters of the opposition candidate was carried out in a ma...

The Election Commissioner, Dayananda Dissanayanake, was reported by the Daily Mirror Newspaper as having removed the competent authority who was to monitor the media. LankaeNews reported that: The Com...

The Sri Lankan customs department has detained a series of books on human rights sent for free distribution to libraries. The books sent by the Asian Legal Resource Centre to the local human rights or...

The Asian Human Commission expresses its serious concern over the conditions of overcrowding in Bogambara prison. The government should take notice of the situation and take measures to deal with the ...

The Pakistani government should quickly reintroduce legislation to protect women and children from domestic violence, Human Rights Watch said today. The Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) B...

Four Tamil prison inmates in Jaffna Prison were hospitalised today, 11th January, after they had fallen seriously ill due to a hunger strike they had undertaken for their release from detention under ...

Dear Friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) regrets to inform you that Ms. Bhuje died on New Year’s Eve after struggling against sickness and hunger since April 2009. She leaves behin...

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information regarding the torture and extrajudicial murder of a young man in Pakistan. The man was reportedly beaten and abused in...

A journalist was attacked and seriously injured by office bearers of a political party, the Sindh Nationalist Front (SNF), on December 31, 2009, near the Hyderabad Press Club, Hyderabad City, Sindh pr...

Basil Fernando The Sirasa Rupavahini Television Service has conducted a series of discussions on the 1978 Constitution. This series has brought to focus some of the fundamental defects of this Constit...

Pakistani political soap opera continues and so far no surprises for the audience. In the latest episode the Supreme Court declared that the National Reconciliation Ordinance was “ultra vires and vio...

Long years of war have had a terrible impact on all areas of Sri Lankan life and one of the major areas to suffer from the war was the media. This was only natural. The war on the military front is al...

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission received information that a tribal leader of Sindh province has held three women and two children in his private jail and one woman has been continuousl...

There is thunderous applause for bringing the accused plunderers and criminals to justice and widespread speculation on the resignation of the president. Very little analysis is being done on the over...

We, the undersigned human rights defenders, are seriously concerned about the Nepal Army’s refusal to hand over Major Niranjan Basnet to the civilian court. The army took Basnet into custody on ...

Three young men from the Pakistani part of Kashmir, abducted by an army Lieutenant Colonel and officials of Frontier Corp were released by their captives after the warning that they should not reveal ...