AHRC News

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...

Protests against the use of torture by law enforcement agencies are becoming more widespread in countries throughout Asia. These are emanating from a growing popular sentiment against torture as an ab...

Strange news has been coming from Thailand, where five police have filed defamation complaints against a reputed forensic pathologist and senior government bureaucrat after they suggested that a man w...

A recent killing in Thailand has brought to the surface some of the deep contradictions in the country’s criminal justice system. Sunthorn Wongdao was found dead in Bang Yai district, Nonthaburi...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 15, 2005 AS-63-2005 A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission Better management could address Sri Lanka’s delays in justice  That Sri Lanka’s criminal ju...

On June 6, the deputy director of Thailand’s Central Institute of Forensic Science, Porntip Rojanasunan, was told by senior government officials that the police force has been given the go-ahead...

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has been made aware of a broadcast by the Sri Lanka Rupawahini Corporation in their regular program Attha Nattha, (Truth and Falsehood) on the evening of June ...

Speaking in Bangkok on June 2, Stephen Toope, chairman of the U.N. Working Group on enforced or involuntary disappearances, said that the Working Group has taken up the case of Thai human rights lawye...

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is shocked to learn about the assassination of a high ranking Sri Lankan military intelligence officer Major Nisam Muthalif today in Colombo. The AHRC condemns...