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The Sri Lankan government today issued emergency regulations to be operative from midnight tonight (November 16, 2009) which makes the services relating to oil, electricity, harbor and water resources...

The employees in the Sri Lanka Ports Development Authority complained of death threats while engaged in a work-to-rule action for the improvement of wages. These employees have complained that for fou...

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned that an injured man was severely and randomly beaten by a police officer at Negombo Police Station and then denied medical treatmen...

Basil Fernando There is the expectation of imminent presidential as well as parliamentary elections in the coming months. The government approaches this with a view to take advantage of the victory ov...

We, the undersigned civil society organizations, are writing to urge your government to support recommendations in the Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict (Goldstone...

Fiji falls furthest, but big advance by Maldives Check your country ranking on: http://www.rsf.org/en-classement1003-2009.html Political power grabs dealt press freedom a great disservice again this ...

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned that officers at Kochchikade officers have arrested and detained a woman without cause or complaint, only releasing her due to pres...

WORLD PRESS FREEDOM RANKING ASIA-PACIFIC Authoritarianism prevents press freedom progress in much of Asia Fiji falls furthest, but big advance by Maldives Check your country ranking on: http://www.rs...

SRI LANKA: Journalist complains of death threats and unknown persons pursuing him (Hong Kong, October 21, 2009) Mr. Senaka Ekanayake, the editor of SATANA, a local newspaper, complained of constant de...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AHRC-STM-216-2009 17 October, 2009 A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission INDIA: World Food Day and International Day for the Eradication of Poverty: Do not give food, ...

A group of representatives from caste-affected communities in Asia recently gave me a piece of brick from the wall of a torn-down latrine. The brick symbolized the global struggle against the degradin...

   Mr. Ranga Bandara, a Member of Parliament gave a live interview to the Asian Human Rights Commission, based in Hong Kong, on October 6th about the arson attack and about the political environment...

The opposition politician Ranga Bandara’s house was burned to cinders on the evening of the 4th October. Sometime earlier, the house of another opposition politician, John Pulle, was similarly r...

Human rights organisations working against caste based discrimination in the region must engage in debates on the need for a comprehensive UN framework to tackle caste based discrimination and should ...

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned that the life of a journalist who has been twice arrested, tortured and remanded on tenuous charges, is in danger. Senake Ekanayake...

Basil Fernando     Nearly five months have passed since the government claimed complete victory over terrorism by the defeat of the LTTE. And at the same time, it was claimed that peace had ...

(This article initially appeared in the Sri Lanka guardian and was written as a response to a discussion in Ground Views) Basil Fernando The concept of the gulag, first used by Aleksandr Solzhenisyn i...

Basil Fernando Dayan Jayatilaka begins his article with the words, “I am proud of my country, Sri Lanka.” To demonstrate the differences in our points of view I would like to begin by stating that, ...

“The issue that concerns me is something a little different. Why is it that many people still do not grasp that the system in this country has gotten so warped that it is not capable of what is ...

Alexander Solzhenitsyn added the word ‘gulag’ to the human rights vocabulary to describe a type of experience that is being repeated in many parts of the world. His own three volume study ...