Right to fair trial

The successful United Nations Resolution on reconciliation and accountability should pave the way for a new period of commitment to cure the wounds of a long conflict, caused upon individuals as well as on the institutional structure of democracy and the rule of law in Sri Lanka. A responsible approach to dealing with the past […]

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 […]

(Hong Kong, March 20, 2011) Temogen “Cocoy” Tulawie, an activist from Sulu province who was falsely charged with attempted murders based on evidence taken by way of forced confession, writes from prison his reasons why he submits himself for court trial. In Temogen’s letter dated February 4, 2012, originally written in Tausug Language and posted on his […]

By Nilantha Ilangamuwa Speech after long silence; it is right, All other lovers being estranged or dead, Unfriendly lamplight hid under its shade, The curtains drawn upon unfriendly night, That we descant and yet again descant Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song: Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young We loved each other and were […]

The suicide of police officer, P G Haridath, on 15 March 2012 brings again to the limelight, issues that adversely affect criminal investigations in India. Haridath was an Additional Superintendent of Police working in the Central Bureau of Investigation. It is reported that the deceased officer was investigating the infamous Sampath murder case in Kerala […]

CAMPAIGN PAGE: FREE PHYO WAI AUNG http://www.humanrights.asia/campaigns/phyo-wai-aung ——————————————————————— Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has been closely following the case of a young man whom the authorities in Burma have falsely accused of involvement in a bombing during 2010, and who confessed after extremely brutal and protracted torture. In this appeal, we are urging […]

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned that a city prosecutor in San Fernando, Pampanga, had dismissed the complaint of torture by five torture victims against a police colonel and other policemen due to “insufficiency of evidence” because their identification of the accused were ‘dubious’ since they were ‘blindfolded’. The five complainants filed a […]

The national debate regarding India’s position about the proposed resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Council concerning Sri Lanka is limited to a Tamil view of the issue. The views exchanged in both houses of the country’s parliament and in the media reflect this. This parochial view about the resolution exposes the widespread lack […]

The judiciary is that branch of the state which adjudicates on conflicts between state institutions, between the state and the individual and between individuals. The judiciary is independent of both legislature and the executive. This is a feature of judicial independence which is of prime importance, both in relation to the government according to law […]

The government of Bangladesh on Monday blanked out three satellite television channels – Ekushey Television, Bangla Vision and Islamic TV – almost an hour before the leader of the opposition Begum Khaleda Zia started her speech at a four-party grand rally today, March 12, 2012. According to a Daily Star report, viewers could not watch these TV […]

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 […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a 15-year-old girl was raped with the connivance of her mother. Despite repeated complaints to several police stations the culprits remain at large, one of them being released on bail. The rapist and the girl’s mother are making continuous threats both to her […]

By Baseer Naveed The disappearances, killings in military detention centers and dumping of bullet-riddled bodies including torture marks on the bodies of the victims, by the spy agencies particularly by ISI and military intelligence are no longer a secret. This was exposed during the case of Abdul Saboor (29), which was taken in custody illegally […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) writes with deep concern on the continued prosecution of Temogen “Cocoy” Tulawie, a human rights defender, for murder charges based on evidence taken by way of forced confessions. We call on the Department of Justice to (DoJ) to drop the charges on him promptly due to serious […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information regarding a woman named Ms. Anthony Chandra, who is mother of three minor aged girls of below 11 years of age, has been detained for more than forty months in twelve fabricated charges under the Prevention of Terrorism Act of Sri Lanka. The Terrorism […]

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 […]