Non-state actors

By Nilantha Ilangamuwa In case of fraudulent agreements, only such shall be valid as are entered into by spies. – Arthashastra by Kautilya She was an icon who gave her energy to develop Sri Lankan cinema. Perhaps it was the era in which the country was searching for meaning through cinema to find and assert […]

The people of Bangladesh are scared. Incidents of abduction by plain-clothed people, who often claim to be law-enforcing agents of the country, are ongoing, without any indication of being on the want. The people of Bangladesh are scared because their brothers and sons are disappearing. The stories of disappearances are being exposed by the media […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a minor Christian girl, Miss Ramsha, 11, was arrested on the charges of blasphemy when she burned some copies of newspapers which were collected from the garbage. The Muslim population of the slum area attacked her house and beat her mother and sister […]

It is devastating for human rights activists the world over and those who stand for religious freedom, practise and tolerance, that the Government of Pakistan is not only stone deaf and dumb but also blind to the continuous murders of the followers of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. We have received the dreadful news that on […]

96 hours after the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) firing in Kotteguda panchayat of Bijapur district in Chhattisgarh state, the union government and the state government of Chhattisgarh are on defensive mode, finding excuses to justify the police action that killed 20 villagers, of which at least five are children. The firing occurred on 30 […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) wishes to forward you the following statement from the mother of Premakumar Gunarathnam and his sister. Asian Human Rights Commission Hong Kong —————————– A statement from the mother of Premakumar Gunarathnam and his sister, forwarded by the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) Earlier, we reported about the abduction of […]

Mr. Premakumar Gunarathnam the leader of the JVP dissident group and Ms. Dimuthu Attigala a member of the same group are reported to be missing from yesterday night. According to a report, published today in the Daily Mirror, both have been arrested. However the grounds on which they were arrested or the location of the place of […]

By Nilantha Ilangamuwa Our lives are spinning out from world to world; the shapes of things are shifting in the wind. What do we know beyond the rapture and the dread?- Stanley Kunitz* “They finished off my husband after two days of torture, and then took me to Hambantota where a number of women were […]

INDIA: GHE fear at New Delhi Reading the proposed draft resolution mooted at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) concerning human rights in Sri Lanka, one cannot help wonder why India did not propose such a resolution before? Today by delaying in arriving at a decision, whether to support the resolution or not, India has once […]

One of the sad truths that we have to live with today is that the people’s struggles for human rights are highly fragmented in India. Equally disheartening is the fact that whenever or wherever human rights comes up for discussion, it is addressed in piecemeal, ignoring and leaving far behind a comprehensive approach to rights […]

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission on the Occasion of the International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2011 The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) today published its 25-page report containing its analyses on what it has observed as the irreparable ‘social and systemic impact’ of the ongoing violations of human rights in the […]

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission on the Occasion of the International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2011 The international community, including leading human rights agencies and organisations, has failed to understand the depth of collapse of rule of law in Sri Lanka and have failed to make any effective intervention in this […]

(Hong Kong, December 9, 2011) Despite signs of political change and the easing of restrictions on freedom of expression in Burma, rights abuses remain “systemic, deeply entrenched and vast in scale”, the Asian Human Rights Commission said today in its annual State of Human Rights in Asia report.   The 17-page Burma report, entitled “From blinkered […]

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission on the Occasion of the International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2011 The state of human rights in a country is directly proportional to the extent of justice achieved in that jurisdiction. Justice is not a physically quantifiable concept. It is “truth in action” as held by […]

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission on the Occasion of the International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2011 The full report is available for download at http://www.humanrights.asia/resources/hrreport/2011/AHRC-SPR-008-2011/view. The state has become dysfunctional in providing basic human rights to the people. Though the parliament exists it either cannot assert its constitutional duties or does not […]

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission on the Occasion of the International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2011 On the occasion of the International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2011 the AHRC is publishing the annual report on the State of Human Rights in South Korea in 2011. The full report is available […]

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission on the Occasion of the International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2011 International Human Rights Day is going to be ‘observed’ in Bangladesh amidst numerous victims facing gross abuses of human rights without an access to legal remedies from the existing criminal justice system. On the eve […]

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission on the Occasion of the International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2011 On the occasion of the 63rd Human Rights Day, the Asian Human Rights Commission is releasing its annual report on the state of human rights protection in Nepal through 2011. The report is available here. Given […]

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission on the Occasion of the International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2011 On the occasion of the International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2011 the AHRC publishes its annual report on the State of Human Rights in Indonesia in 2011. The full report will be made available […]

Murders of father, mother and two children in Udawalawe While the whole nation was shocked by the multiple killings at Mulleriyawa, another set of gruesome murders have been reported from Puhulyaya, Panahakaduwa, in Udawalawe. A father M K Lalith (37), mother R Indrani Gnanalatha (32), son M K Dilan Chathuranga (12), daughter M K Nadeeka […]