Institutional reform

A Statement from CIVICUS forwarded by the Asian Human Rights Commission The CIVICUS Monitor added Pakistan to its watchlist of countries in early March 2024, following the repression against the opposition, the censorship of journalists and attacks on peaceful protests around the elections. Elections were held in Pakistan on 8th February 2024. Ahead of the elections, the […]

A Statement from CIVICUS forwarded by the Asian Human Rights Commission The CIVICUS Monitor in December 2023 downgraded Sri Lanka’s civic space rating to ‘repressed,’ with authorities clamping down on protesters, stifling journalists and targeting activists amid mounting public frustration with poor governance and a lack of accountability. In January 2024, Human Rights Watch said […]

(Hong Kong, January 16, 2024) The Panel of Judges at the East Jakarta District Court has issued an acquittal verdict regarding the case of criminalisation against Ms. Fatia Maulidiyanti (the Director of the Commission for the Disappearances and Victims of Violence [KontraS] for the 2020-2023 period) and Mr. Haris Azhar (the Founder of the LOKATARU […]

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission on the occasion of Human Rights Day In commemorating the International Human Rights Day, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) highlights the theme of the lack of protection of human rights defenders in Indonesia. More than 20 years’ of political reform after former dictator President Suharto stepped […]

IMF in its recent report issued in September titled Sri Lanka; Technical Assistance Report-Governance Diagnostic Assessment, has directed its attention to the problems relating to the independence in conduct of prosecutions into crimes in Sri Lanka. It points to the absence of independent prosecutor in Sri Lanka and also notes that this given rise to real or perceived […]

By Basil Fernando Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville is the famous author of the book Democracy in America. It is one of the world’s best known writings which have been appreciated by many philosophers, writers, thinkers and also people in many countries. It has also been translated into many languages.  Tocqueville was a […]

A Statement from Asia Democracy Network forwarded by the Asian Human Rights Commission Seoul, Korea – The Asia Democracy Network (ADN) vehemently condemns the recent sentencing of Adilur Rahman Khan and Nasiruddin Elan, activists attached to the Odhikar human rights organization in Bangladesh. Their unjust imprisonment on trumped-up charges is a grave violation of their […]

By Basil Fernando This story is about Junious. Please do not think that I made a mistake in naming the hero and misspelling Junious for genius. I quite understand some people’s misunderstanding of that sort because an impression has been created and kept for a long time that Junious was in fact the genius. That […]

(Hong Kong, August 09, 2023)  ​​​​​​​Written submission to the Supreme Court on the “Contempt of a Court, Tribunal or Institution” Bill The Bill titled “Contempt of a Court, Tribunal or Institution” came for discussion before the Supreme Court on the 3rd and 4th of August. After the oral submission, written submissions were allowed to be filed by […]

By Basil Fernando On the larger questions raised by the arrest of Tharindu Uduwaragedera, a young journalist of very wide reputation. Tharindu Uduwaragedera who was attending a meeting on Friday (28 July) for the purpose of reporting on the meeting was forcibly dragged out of a three-wheeler, grabbed by his hair and roughly manhandled by […]

By Basil Fernando The purpose of the proposed Bill on the Contempt of Court is to criminalise the acts which may be considered to constitute the offence of contempt of court and to punish it. Clearly, this proposed Bill is meant to create offences under the contempt of court and therefore the purpose is to create […]

By Basil Fernando The draft Bill entitled ‘Contempt of Court, Tribunal or Institutions’, has been included in the parliament’s order paper and the issue of the constitutionality of this Bill will now be subjected to debate. There are several key questions arising from this draft Bill. These are:- Does this proposed law amounts to repeal […]

The trial on the criminalization case against Ms. Fatia Maulidiyanti (Coordinator of KontraS) and Mr. Haris Azhar (Founder of Lokataru) entered the stage of examining the reporting witness, namely Mr. Luhut Binsar Panjaitan. At this trial, it became increasingly clear that the Public Prosecutor (JPU) no longer represented the interests of the State but behaved […]

An Open Letter from the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) to the Panel Judges: 1. A case register Number No. 202/Pid.Sus/2023/PN Jkt.Tim (Suspect Mr. Haris Azhar) 2. A case register Number. 203/Pid.Sus/2023/PN Jkt.Tim (Suspect: Ms. Fatia Maulidiyanty) Jl. Dr. Sumarno No. 1, RT.7/RW.4, Penggilingan, Kec. Cakung, Kota Jakarta Timur DKI Jakarta -13940 Telp : +622148703788 | Faks […]

බැසිල් ප්‍රනාන්දු නීතියමත පාලනය පිළිබදව වර්ථමාන කාලය තුල ලිය වී ඇති පොත් අතර ඉතාමත් ප්‍රසිද්ධියට පත් පොතක් වූයේ ටොම් බින්ග්හම් (Tom Bingham) සාමිවරයා විසින් ලියන ලද නීතිය මත පාලනය (The Rule of Law) යන පොතය. එම පොත නීතිය මත පාලනය යන නමින් සිංහලට පරිවර්ථනය කොට ඇත. එම පොතෙහි නීතිය මත පාලනය යන්න පිළිබදව ඇති නිර්වචනයය […]

A Statement from The Times.lk forwarded by the Asian Human Rights Commission                                                                         පොලිසිය අත්අඩංගුවට ගනු ලබන සැකකරුවන් විමර්ශන කටයුතු සඳහා ආයුධ පෙන්වීමට […]

Three major ‘strategies’ have been used in this draft bill on anti-terrorism 2023.which create very great confusion about the meaning of the contents of the proposed law and its implications. Three ‘strategies’ The first of these strategies is not to define the meaning of terrorism. The meaning of the key word of this document is […]

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Extended Fund Facility has approved a fund to assist Sri Lanka at this time of terrible economic crisis. While there are many things to talk about that issue, we wish at the very beginning to highlight what we think is the most important issue that should be brought to the […]

IMF ආයතනය විසින් ලංකාවට විස්තීරණ ණය පහසුකම (Extended fund facility), කියන කොන්දේසිය යටතේ ණයක් දීම පිළිගෙන තිබීම, අද දින තුල වාර්තා වුනා.  මේ අවස්ථාවේ දී, ඊට අදාලව ඉතාම ප්‍රධාන කාරණාව ක අවධානය යොමු කල යුතු යැයි අපි කල්පනා කරනවා.  IMF ආයතනය, මෙම මුදල් දීමට එකඟ වීමත් සමඟම, ඒ සදහා කොන්දේසි ගණනාවක් පිළිබද ව බරපතලව සාකච්ඡා […]

The debate on who should be the next Inspector General of Police (IGP) is part of the public debate these days. The focus of this debate is more on who should be the “person” rather than what is the expectation from the new IGP in terms of the challenges faced on the one hand concerning […]