Rule of law

The Indian media often report with contempt the killing and maiming of the citizens by non-state actors. The limited debate in the country upon the issue is centred on the illegitimacy of violence used by the terrorists, insurgents and armed resistance movements, and is highly polarised. Except for the effort of a few publications like […]

(“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 has learned that twenty days after the abduction of a high profile scientist in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), no official investigation has been held into his disappearance. Political agents in the federally administered tribal area have told the man’s family not to lodge a criminal complaint, […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received details of a new case brought against a human rights defender who has for some years worked to support the land rights of farmers in Burma. U Aye Myint, was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment this September on a spurious charge of threatening to injure […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that two anti-corruption activists have been accused of defamation by the Attorney General’s Office (AGO), after their group publicly pointed out a multi-trillion rupiah gap in the AGO’s annual budget and called for an investigation. The case raises questions about the use of the […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned that the Paikgachha police have compiled at least four fake cases against a businessman after he complained about them to higher officials. The victim was detained in prison for 100 days under judicial magistrate Mr. Seyed Habibul Islam and the Officer-in-Charge (OC) at the time, […]

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 been informed that senior police officials are preventing an investigation into the alleged gang rapes of female students by a group of teachers. The family of one victim is being pressured to settle outside legal channels in a feudal jirga court, despite directions from the Chief […]

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned that Paikgachha police have created a fake case against six men; all of whom were trying to take a case against a local con man. Two were demanding the refund of police bribe money. The events suggest that officers are supporting a man who has […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has obtained details of another case in Burma speaking to the country’s “injustice system” and how it affects the rights of all citizens in different ways. In this case a man who repeatedly called the government electricity supplier to complain has been jailed under a restraining order, […]

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned that three girls in Burma have been sentenced to a year in jail with hard labour for allegedly selling illegal lottery tickets. When the case against them came to court, the judge reportedly ignored evidence given that the three girls are not yet 16 years […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has obtained further and more detailed information on the case of Ma Mar Mar Aye, on whose imprisonment we recently issued an appeal. According to this information, the primary reason for her imprisonment was not the T-shirts that the police removed from her house, as previously reported, […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is pleased to inform you that two journalists who had been imprisoned in 2008 for helping cyclone victims to contact international agencies have been released from prison. CASE DETAILS: As per our appeal in April (AHRC-UAC-033-2009), 24-year-old Ma Eint Khaing Oo and 29-year-old Ko Kyaw Kyaw Thant, […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has obtained information on another recent case of gross injustice and denial of fundamental rights in Burma, this time arising from possession of some T-shirts. Police arrested Ma Mar Mar Aye at her house in August after misleading her into thinking that she would come back home […]

While the country faced two unexpected deaths of former presidents this year, which have been commemorated nationwide, the deaths of five men in the process of forcible dispersal by the police which took place in January 20 in Youngsan-4ga, Seoul have been forgotten by the people and are no longer discussed by the media due […]

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a human rights lawyer who offers free legal counsel to victims of the country’s harsh blasphemy laws, has escaped an attempt on his life and is receiving continual death threats from Muslim fundamentalist groups. Local police officers have repeatedly rebuffed his requests for […]

Dear friends, Though the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is pleased to note the start of a long-awaited investigation into the illegal arrest and torture of a rickshaw puller and a day-labourer after an Urgent Appeal was issued, the investigation is seriously flawed. The torture took place at Paikgachha police station in 2008 and the […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has obtained detailed information about the case of a monk in Burma who is being tried without evidence for insulting religion. The monk, U Sandadhika, went like other onlookers to the outside of the court where Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her co-defendants were being tried […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has been informed of an ongoing case in Burma in which four men are being tried for having stickers of Aung San Suu Kyi. The men were arrested without basis and it was reportedly only after entering their houses that the police seized the stickers and accused […]

Dear friends,  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned that a Norwegian citizen and political activist of Iranian nationality has been forcefully abducted from a bus between Balochistan province and the Sindh province capital, Karachi. Eyewitnesses described his abductors as armed, plain-clothed and in a fleet of four-wheel jeeps bearing no registration number, but […]