Urgent Appeals

Extended Introduction: Urgent Appeals, theory and practice

A need for dialogue

Many people across Asia are frustrated by the widespread lack of respect for human rights in their countries. Some may be unhappy about the limitations on the freedom of expression or restrictions on privacy, while some are affected by police brutality and military killings. Many others are frustrated with the absence of rights on labour issues, the environment, gender and the like. Yet the expression of this frustration tends to stay firmly in the private sphere. People complain among friends and family and within their social circles, but often on a low profile basis. This kind of public discourse is not usually an effective measure of the situation in a country because it is so hard to monitor. Though the media may cover the issues in a broad manner they rarely broadcast the private fears and anxieties of the average person. And along with censorship – a common blight in Asia – there is also often a conscious attempt in the media to reflect a positive or at least sober mood at home, where expressions of domestic malcontent are discouraged as unfashionably unpatriotic. Talking about issues like torture is rarely encouraged in the public realm. There may also be unwritten, possibly unconscious social taboos that stop the public reflection of private grievances. Where authoritarian control is tight, sophisticated strategies are put into play by equally sophisticated media practices to keep complaints out of the public space, sometimes very subtly. In other places an inner consensus is influenced by the privileged section of a society, which can control social expression of those less fortunate. Moral and ethical qualms can also be an obstacle. In this way, causes for complaint go unaddressed, un-discussed and unresolved and oppression in its many forms, self perpetuates. For any action to arise out of private frustration, people need ways to get these issues into the public sphere.
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SRI LANKA: Two men are shot, illegally detained and charged with a fabricated offence by Urubokka police

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information regarding the botched arrest and shooting of two men by Urubokka police officers, who then fabricated their charges. T...

UPDATE (Thailand): Years after the Kalasin killings just two are under special investigation; another disappearance has been reported

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is continuing its series of appeals on the alleged torture, abductions and killings committed by police officers in Kalasin province in North-e...

UPDATE (Burma): Three innocent men are tortured into confessing to a bomb plot

Dear friends,  Last year the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) issued an urgent appeal in the case of U Myint Aye, the leader of the Human Rights Defenders and Promoters group in Burma whom police...

SRI LANKA: Police torture a taxi driver for the drug crimes of his passengers

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned that police officers have arrested the driver of a three-wheel taxi in Wattala and tortured him severely to force a confession. Dur...

PAKISTAN: Peasant activist targeted for exposing human rights violations of feudalism

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission has been informed that a peasant activist, who lives in Sindh Province, has received no protection or help from police despite being subjected to tortur...

INDIA: Retrafficking of a twelve-year-old girl with the aid of local police

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from Guria, a local human rights organisation based in Uttar Pradesh, regarding the alleged kidnapping and physical hara...

SRI LANKA: The Nikaweratiya Police use severe torture to extract a confession from an innocent man, then offer him a cup of tea; hospital staff proscribe paracetamol

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a father of three was arbitrarily picked up and tortured by police, first in a wood then at a police station, to fo...

PAKISTAN: Police illegally arrest and continue to detain a shopkeeper cleared of blasphemy

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission has received information that a young Christian grocer has been wrongly arrested under the blasphemy law after another shopkeeper advised him to burn ...

SRI LANKA: Police in Katugastota torture and frame a man

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a young man is facing fabricated charges in Kandy Magistrate’s Court. The cases against him are patently fl...

INDIA: The government must do more to help 163 Dalit households affected by a social boycott

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a Dalit community has been living under a complete economic and social boycott levied against them by their villa...

PAKISTAN: Police officers participate in the rape and murder of a woman and no investigation is carried out

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that no investigation is being done into the rape and murder of a woman last year by a group of men, which included tw...

UPDATE (Sri Lanka): A police officer on trial for the murder of Gerald Perera remains in service at Gampaha Police Station

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) would like to report that a police inspector being tried for the assassination of Gerald Perera is still working for the state as an officer. T...

INDIA: Police in Gujarat support the beating and social exclusion of three Dalit families

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a local feudal leader and his family, the Khans, who control affairs in Ingoli village, Gujarat, are behind the s...

PHILIPPINES: Soldiers torture a man with electric shocks to his sex organ to force a confession

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) writes to inform you that a man who was abducted by soldiers, tortured and held incommunicado for over three months remains in detention over que...

INDIA: Two persons shot dead in Manipur

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from the Human Rights Initiative (HRI), a human rights organisation based in Imphal, Manipur regarding the murder of two...

PHILIPPINES: Soldiers torture and shoot a farmer dead in front of his family

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is writing to inform you about the recent torture and killing of a farmer in front of his family. The soldiers, who were on a military operation,...

PAKISTAN/KASHMIR: Two women are abducted and three others are arrested as a result of a love marriage

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a couple who belong to different religious sects and who chose to marry freely are currently in hiding due to thr...

PAKISTAN: The groom of a love marriage is unjustly jailed while his wife, father and brother are missing after their violent abduction by his in-laws

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission has learned that a young woman who married freely last summer remains missing, along with her husband’s father and brother, after they were seen...

PAKISTAN: A man who donated land for a hospital is attacked after the land is grabbed by ruling party members

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is writing to inform you that members of a ruling party have grabbed land that was donated for a hospital project in Punjab province. When the ...

BURMA: Two elected MPs given 27 years for writing letter to UN

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) regrets to have to inform you of yet another case of gross injustice and denial of human rights in Burma through that country’s “inju...