AHRC News

According to the latest media reports, the Sri Lankan Inspector General of Police (IGP), Chandra Fernando, has said that the police will apply to the Attorney General’s department to have a tria...

Farmers in parts of Mindanao, southern Philippines, have for the last three years suffered terrible crop losses due to drought and rats. Deep poverty, severe hunger and starvation have followed. Altho...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 22, 2005 AS-84-2005 A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) What is the point of Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation? For at least the third...

In responding to the current dysfunctional status of the Constitutional Council, the Government of Sri Lanka has stated–by way of a communique published in the media–that this is a result ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 19, 2005 AS-82-2005 A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) Extrajudicial killings reflect absence of command responsibility within Sri Lanka’s policin...

It should come as no surprise to anyone that has followed the saga of missing Thai human rights lawyer Somchai Neelaphaijit to hear that his wife Angkhana has now taken his case directly to the U.N. H...

This next week of July 2005 is an historic one for Thailand. As a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) it will go before the U.N. Human Rights Committee for the fi...

Just as the trial into the murder of High Court Judge Sarath Ambipitiya has concluded, another judge, former Magistrate of Wellawaya Magistrate’s Court, Janaka Bandara has received death threats. The...

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) expresses serious concern about the visible loss of interest in torture cases by the Attorney General’s Department. While the government and its officials may...

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is reproducing below the translation of a statement made by a tuberculosis patient to Sri Lanka’s Special Investigation Unit. The statement reveals how a...

The Asian Human Rights Commission condemns the strike reported to be taking place at the Negombo Government Hospital as baseless, unjust, unprofessional and amounting to holding sick people to ransom ...

A High Court judge, Sarath Ambipitiya, was assassinated on the 21st November 2004.  Within seven months the criminal investigations and the trial were completed with a three member trial at bar findi...

It is becoming increasingly obvious that getting away with murder in the Philippines is made easy by the absence of any functioning witness protection scheme. The lack of witnesses also becomes a conv...

The last decade has seen numerous gross human rights violations in Indonesia that have been widely reported by local activists as well as international groups. Of particular concern has been the lack ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AS-72-2005 June 27, 2005 A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) Trauma treatment should be integral to Nepal’s human rights monitoring operation Torture, e...

Writing to Suwat Liptapanlop, the Minister of Justice of Thailand on June 22, the Asian Human Rights Commission observed, “The question may well be asked as to why Thai police enjoy electrocutin...

Much of the public prosecutor’s office in India now functions as a brokerage office where unholy deals are fixed between the police, the defence counsel and the prosecutors. Nothing worse could be ex...

Why has a special day been proposed for the victims of torture? What is its importance? It is hoped that this special day will initiate a movement that can highlight the gravity of torture and establi...

Torture is an extraordinary crime. The perpetrators of acts of torture have been recognised as hostis humanis generis , enemies of all humankind. Therefore, all states must ensure that the prevention...

The Philippine government prohibits the use of torture as stipulated in its 1987 constitution. It is also a state party to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatmen...