Urgent Appeal Update

Dear Friends,  Regarding our previous urgent appeal on the torture case of Mr. Lalith Rajapakse (Re: UA-18/2002, http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2002/240/), we are forwarding you a copy of a letter written by AHRC to the Minster of Interior of Sri Lanka, Mr. John Amaratunga on the failure to punish law enforcement officers who engage in torture, and other […]

Dear Friends,  Regarding the torture case of Mr. Greesha de Silva (Previous appeal has spelled as Grissa) in Sri Lanka, We are sending you the medical report in this case.  No inquiry has yet started under Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel and Inhuman and Degrading Punishment or Treatment Act, (Act No 22 of 1994), […]

Dear Friends  Two weeks without food are beginning to pay a toll on Fr. Pallath’s health, but he remains committed to continuing his action until he finds justice. It is difficult to comprehend that the Jesuit leaders of Kerala are refusing to give anything in the face of this strong moral protest. Perhaps they think […]

Dear Friends  Following is an update with some progress on the case of Mr. Lalith Rajapakse, a torture victim in Sri Lanka. We are not requesting any further action at this stage, but we may request this in the near future is there is no positive action for his state of health and the prosecution […]

Dear Friends,  We are forwarding you the first updates of Fr Pallath’s hunger strike for justice, provided by EES Calicut. We will keep you updated on this case as the events unfold in coming days and weeks, in the hope that you will continue any efforts you may be able to make on Fr. Pallath’s […]

Dear Friends,  “This as that I will be here between Myanmar Independent Monument and Yangon city hall until either the government agrees to my petitions or simply kills me. I am here offering my life for the cause of the rights of Myanmar citizens.”  You might remember the above old Burmese professor’s appeal for democracy […]

Richard Cook, Director of UNRWA operations in the West Bank: 
“The reports we are getting are of wholesale destruction of a kind more normally associated with natural disasters such as earthquakes…. We implore the Israeli authorities to open up the camp to allow our relief teams to help its desperate population.” 

Dear Friends,  We would like to send you a copy of the 20th open letter sent by the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) to the Jesuit superior general in Rome regarding Fr. Pallath’s case.  Readers are encouraged to write to the Jesuit superior general and call for an inquiry into Fr. Pallath’s case.  For further […]

Dear Friends We are asking for your urgent action in the light of dramatic developments in the struggle of the ISA detainees for proper medical and legal treatment. The 8-day long hunger strike and several days without water has seriously weakened the six detainees to the point where two have been put on intravenous drip […]

The UN Commission on Human Rights, meeting in its 58th session, issued a press statement on 16th April including the following reference to the obstacles placed by ‘the occupying power’ to the proposed visit by the High Commissioner on Human Rights to the occupied Palestinian territories: 

We are forwarding an appeal from Eviction Watch and the Urban Poor Consortium (UPC) for your further action to protect Indonesian human rights defenders. After the second attack on UPC by the FBR (Betawi Brotherhood Forum) which caused many of you to write protest letters, 7 of the attackers have been arrested. 

We are forwarding the following urgent press release from SUARAM, a human rights organisation in Malaysia. It concerns the HUNGER STRIKE FOR FREEDOM which six prisoners of conscience in Malaysia’s Kamunting Detention Camp began on Wednesday 10 April. Since Wednesday, one of the six, Badrulamin Bahron, who is suffering from high blood pressure, has been so weakened that he is bed-ridden, two others are suffering severe migraine attacks and the others are losing weight quickly and weakening. However, the Malaysian authorities have refused to bring Badrulamin to hospital, in spite of the doctor’s advice.

(RE: UA-11-2002: Attacks on human rights defenders, destruction of property, public use of weapons with impunity)  UPDATE (INDONESIA): Further attacks on human rights defenders, public threats made with impunity  ———————————————————————-  Dear Friends  We are including here a joint statement by 48 Indonesian NGOs in response to another attack by the FBR (Betawi Brotherhood Forum) on […]

Dear Friends,  On March 16, 2002, we sent an urgent appeal about the attack on the office of Kontras (Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence) in Jakarta by unidentified Ambonese people on March 13. To follow up this appeal, we are forwarding you a letter sent to Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri by Forum-Asia […]

Dear Friends,  On 26 February 2002, AHRC issued an urgent appeal drawing attention to the case of Stephen Khan, a Kashmiri asylum seeker who has been in detention in Australia since 1998. At the time the Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) also wrote directly to the Minister of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, Philip Ruddock (in […]

AHRC has previously released an urgent appeal and update on the arrest and detention of Dr Salai Tun Than, who held a one man protest in front of Rangoon Town Hall last November 2001.

Dear Friends,  We would like to send you a copy of the 19th open letter sent by the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) to the Jesuit superior general in Rome regarding Fr. Pallath’s case.  Readers are encouraged to write to the Jesuit superior general and call for an inquiry into Fr. Pallath’s case.  For further […]

Dear Friends,  We are sending you updated information regarding our previous appeal (UA-39-2001) about Mr. S. K. Pradhan, secretary-general of the Peoples Forum for Human Rights and Development (PFHRD) in Bhutan, and urge you to take ACTION NOW for the immediate release of Mr. Pradhan.  To briefly review the case, Mr. Pradhan was arrested on […]

Dear Friends  For your continued information and attention to this case, we are issuing here three letters that have been sent on behalf of Sister Vanaselvi, who was summarily ejected from her Order and ostracised upon being arrested by the police on what have so far proven to be baseless charges. If you have not […]

Dear Friends,  Following is an appeal which was signed by more than 30 NGOs in Sri Lanka, to urge the Sri Lankan government to take impartial inquiry and action against a high level police attack on the NHRC on 22 January, 2002. The Sri Lankan government, as well as the National Human Rights Commission of […]