Right to remedy

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) welcomes with reservations President Benigno Aquino III’s order to withdraw the charges against 43 health workers, collectively known as ‘Morong 43′, as reported today. We strongly believe, based on the documents and information that we have also obtained, that they should have not been arrested, detained, and forced to […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a woman, who received a stay order from court over a dispute on ownership of her house, was picked up by policemen and their informers and taken to a private detention centre where she was gang raped for more than 50 days. The […]

The contempt of court proceedings initiated against Advocate Prashant Bushan in the Supreme Court of India for the allegations he made against some of the former Chief Justices of the country will test the maturity of India’s judicial system and that of its democratic framework. Indeed the Court has a statutory right to initiate proceedings […]

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned that a Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) team killed a man on 16 March 2010. The witnesses told the AHRC that Major Kamruzzaman of the RAB-10 shot the man pointing a pistol at the person’s head in a staircase of a two-storied building. The authorities have […]

(“We don’t care about it, we don’t know about it” – the Acting Head of the Provincial Police)     As it has been widely reported, 57 people-including two human rights lawyers and 30 journalists – were slaughtered on November 23 in Maguindanao, a province in central Mindanao. While much of the stories and worldwide […]

Dear Friends,   The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) writes with deep regrets with regard to the lack of substantial progress in the investigation of the murder of an activist we reported to have been killed on November 28, 2005. His wife has yet to obtain a copy of the official reinvestigation report into his […]

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned that police are pressuring a low-caste woman to withdraw a case against a group of people who accused her of being a witch, beat her, and forced her to eat human excreta. There are currently no laws in Nepal designed to protect religious minorities or […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned that a team from the Rapid Action Battalion-10, a paramilitary force involved in maintaining law and order in Bangladesh, tortured a journalist at his house while in their custody, and detained him for more than ten hours. The soldiers made a fabricated video at his […]

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that police and the Sri Lankan Human Rights Commission have failed to investigate case in which a man was attacked and disabled by thugs allegedly working for a local criminal. The case highlights a relationship of convenience between criminal informers and the police in […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has been informed by a local human rights organisation in Uttar Pradesh, the People’s Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR), that a 13-year-old girl was sexually assaulted by her neighbour.  In an attempt to rape the girl the accused entered their house and attacked her whilst she […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned that a group of villagers had badly beaten a teenager named San Seng, aged 18. They cut off two fingers on his left hand for allegedly stealing two mobile phone sets on 9 September 2008 in Palilay village, Poipet commune, O Chreou district, Banteay Meanchey […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a civilian was arrested and murdered by security personnel in Manipur. It is reported that this incident is yet another case of a notorious ‘pick up’ that usually results in torture, killing or enforced disappearances.  When the wife of the victim tried to […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned that the police allegedly ordered parents to pay a bribe of 150000 riels (US$37.5) each if their sons were not to be arrested after these youths had damaged a party sign in Soeung commune, Bor Keo district, Rattankiri province. On 2 July 2008, they arrested […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from Bangladesh that a judge of a Special Tribunal for Women has ordered the detention of two persons in absence of a thorough investigation and solely on the basis of a false complaint. The two detainees, whom the police have arrested on March 30, […]

[NOTICE: The AHRC have developed a new automatic letter-sending system using the “button” below. However, in this appeal, we could not include e-mail addresses of some of the Cambodian authorities. We encourage you to send your appeal letters via fax or post to those people. Fax numbers and postal addresses of the Cambodian authorities are […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) writes to inform you about the prolonged detention of two farmers in Davao Oriental province, the Philippines. Both of them have been detained for almost three years without any progress in their case because the prosecution witnesses failed to appear in court on six occasions. One of […]

We reproduced below a judgement made by a bench of five judges, presided over by the Chief Justice, Sarath N. Silva, of Sri Lanka, which leaves no doubt that the court wishes to nullify the impact of Sri Lanka being a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) as well as […]

In a very strange move that will surprise anyone concerned with the global effort to eradicate disappearances and gross human rights violations, the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL), which claims to be the country’s prime agency for the protection and promotion of human rights, officially decided to stop further inquiries into disappearance cases […]

On July 17 the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) issued an appeal on the alleged torture, armed robbery, illegal detention, and attempted rape and extortion of two persons in Saraburi, just northeast of Bangkok in Thailand. According to Uthai Boonnom, he and his partner were taken–at gunpoint and blindfolded–to a house in the forest where […]

The numerous appointments to key national commissions by the executive president, contravening constitutional requirements, are a very clear indication of Sri Lanka’s drift from a law-based society to one in which the law plays a significantly reduced role.  While criticism against presidential actions has pointed to matters including the fact that no person is above […]