Refugees, IDPs & Asylum seekers

ASIA: Weekly Roundup, Episode 73

In this week’s Roundup, AHRC TV brings to you critical stories from the region. The programme begins with an update on Nepal, where a second major earthquake has rocked the nation. Renewed rescue efforts, along with relief work, have recommenced, but are inadequate for the needs of the people of the Himalayan nation.  Staying in Nepal, […]

NEPAL: Let natural disaster not be compounded by State failure

Statement | Nepal | 13-05-2015

Another earthquake, this one with a magnitude of 7.3 on the Richter scale, struck Nepal on 12 May. It has led to 65 deaths and counting, adding to the more than 8,000 lives lost since the first earthquake hit Nepal two weeks ago on 25 April 2015. Tuesday’s earthquake was centred about 76 km (47 […]

SRI LANKA: No country is rich enough to pay for the cost of lawlessness

Sri Lankans have just been confronted with the abduction of two policemen, one of whom was assassinated. The other narrowly escaped by struggling and running into the jungle naked. He is now receiving treatment in a hospital. This incident happened at Kurunegala. The immediate reaction of some persons who were interviewed by the press agencies […]

PAKISTAN: More than ten thousand flood victim families have been denied compensation since 2007

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that more than ten thousand flood victim families have been denied approved compensation by the authorities since 2007 and are displaced without having a proper source of income. The floods of June 2007 destroyed thousands of fruit trees, acres of agriculture land and hundreds […]

THAILAND: Rohingya asylum seekers arrested in southern provinces of Thailand

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission is deeply concerned for the fate of Rohingya asylum seekers who have been arrested in the past weeks in police sweeps of remote areas in Songkhla’s Sadao district near the border with Malaysia and the other provinces. They have fled from Burma, where they have been subjected to […]

PAKISTAN: Endangered life and livelihood of indigenous fisherfolk in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information regarding atrocities by fisheries contractors against fishermen who are raising their voice to defend their basic rights in the district of Dera Ismail Khan (DIK), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. It is alleged that the local police officials at Paroya Police Station and Cantonment Police Station […]

BANGLADESH: Open borders to Myanmar Refugees

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) wishes to forward to you the following open letter and online petition from the AVAAZ community to the Bangladesh government urging them to open their borders for Myanmar refugees. When this letter was written, 2527 signatures had already been collected. For those who wish to petition online, […]

NEPAL: Bhutanese refugee tortured and threatened with false charges in Kathmandu

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a 29-year-old Bhutanese refugee, Jit Bahadur Subba, having applied for third country resettlement was arrested from the office of the International organization for Migrant on 27 April 2012. After his arrest, he was kept in illegal detention for two days without receiving any […]

INDIA: A corpse of rights without justice at its soul

Article | India | 29-02-2012

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 […]

INDONESIA: Massive Indonesian Offensive Displaces Thousands In Paniai As Helicopters Attack And Raze Villages

Thousands of people have reportedly fled in terror from a large area in Paniai, West Papua as a massive combined Police and military offensive attacked villages on December 13, attempting to break armed resistance from pro-independence guerrillas. Credible human rights sources are claiming up to 20 local people have been shot dead by Indonesian security […]

PHILIPPINES: Inability to protect has created a ‘parallel system’

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 […]

SRI LANKA: International human rights agencies failed to notice the collapse of the Sri Lanka’s public institutions of justice

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 […]

BURMA: Abuses remain “systemic, entrenched”, AHRC warns

(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 […]

INDIA: Human rights a utopia without justice

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 […]

PAKISTAN: The government dodges the international community on civil and political rights

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 […]

SOUTH KOREA: Human Rights in 2011 – Systematic setup to restrict rights vs. systematic failure to protect rights

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 […]

BANGLADESH: State appears bankrupt in protecting rights

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 […]

INDONESIA: Human Rights in 2011 – The Decay of Pancasila and Constitutional Protections

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 […]

NEPAL: Commitments to accountability and justice continue to be jeopardized in 2011

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 […]

PAKISTAN/THAILAND: International community must intervene for the release of 85 Ahmadi refugees mistreated in Thailand

A group of 85 persons have been in detention in Bangkok since December 14, 2010 despite the fact that they are already registered as asylum seekers with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Bangkok. Of the 85 persons, 17 of them have reportedly had their applications accepted and have been granted refugee status. […]