AHRC News

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BURMA: Attack on democracy party in Burma demands an uncompromising international response

The military rulers of Burma have in this past week again shown that their pretensions to human rights and political change are utterly fraudulent. The Asian Human Rights Commission has received with ...

THAILAND: Thailand’s dangerous slide into barbarism

Thailand’s dangerous slide into barbarism The six migrant workers murdered in Thailand this week were the victims of a monster that threatens to consume an entire society and its democracy. The ...

INDIA: Reforms Committee recommendations will throw the Indian criminal justice system back into the dark ages

In November 2000 the Government of India set up the Committee on Reforms of the Criminal Justice System, purportedly to fairly assess and propose changes to the way criminal trials are conducted in In...

INDONESIA: Termination of Komnas HAM Massacre Investigations Will Only Exacerbate Indonesia’s Culture of Impunity

Due to harassment by militia gangs and political elites connected to the Soeharto military rule, Indonesia’s first preliminary investigations into the 1965-66 Massacre and the 1998 May Riot by t...

HONG KONG: Deep Appreciation for the Life and Work of Dr. Tse Yuen-man

The right to life is at the centre of all human rights, and all efforts of the community should be geared toward its protection and promotion. All medical, nutritional, environmental, educational and ...

SRI LANKA: Horrible Crimes but No Possibility of DNA Tests

A Comment by the Asian Human Rights Commission – AHRC The killing of the Hamer family in Dehiwela in Sri Lanka has added to the list of horrible crimes that are taking place in the country on al...

A Campaigner Against Disappearances in Sri Lanka Wins Prestigious Kwangju Human Rights Award

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission Since 2000, the Kwangju Human Rights Award is presented yearly in honor of the 1980 Kwangju Uprising, where the Kwangju people fought against the milit...

BURMA: Hunger still rampant in Burma

Burma is a fertile country with abundant resources. In years gone by it was said that nobody ever starves in Burma. This has long ceased to be the case. Empirical evidence suggests that every day mill...

SRI LANKA: A Law To Encourage And Reward Torture – A Comment On The Bill On Organized Crime

——————–The justice system of Sri Lanka: What a damn mess—————— A Bill entitled Prevention of Organized Crime was gazetted ...

Ambedkar’s Relevance to the Global Democratisation Debate

Ambedkar’s Anniversary 2003 The work of the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has been very much influenced by the work of B. R. Ambedkar, who in recent history was the undisputed leader of t...

IRAQ: Worse than tyranny is colonialism; worse than dictatorship is anarchy

The people of Iraq have endured a war of great cruelty in the name of their liberation. What they now get is not liberation but colonialism, which is worse than tyranny and war combined.  Having been...

THAILAND: Why has the rule of law been made a victim of Thailand’s anti-drug campaign?

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission – AHRC Why has the rule of law been made a victim of Thailand’s anti-drug campaign? Since February, when the government of Thailand opened ...

SRI LANKA: Highest compensation to date awarded Sri Lanka torture victim

HONG KONG, Friday, April 4, 2003: The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka today awarded a torture victim a record amount in compensation. In the case of Gerald Perera, who was tortured by a group of police of ...

SRI LANKA: On the misconduct of the Chief Justice of Sri Lanka, Sarath Silva

In the addendum to his 2003 report to the UN Commission on Human Rights, the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers Mr. Dato’ Param Cumaraswamy stated that he continues to ...

IRAQ: As terrible madness unfolds in Iraq, we are all at war

The Asian Human Rights Charter guarantees all persons the right to live in peace, and stresses that this right “can be guaranteed only if states are accountable to the international community...

SRI LANKA: Regarding the torture and contempt of court case of Anthony Michael Fernando

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has carefully studied the complaint of torture made by Anthony Michael Emmanuel Fernando on 16 February 2003 and the previous contempt of court case against hi...

SRI LANKA: The Judiciary and Human Rights

We are forwarding a statement from the Free Media Movement in Sri Lanka regarding a very extraordinary incident. A man who has filed a fundamental (human) rights application at the Supreme Court of Sr...

CAMBODIA: Ten years after UNTAC, not an inch of progress in Cambodia’s rule of law

The total destruction of the Thai embassy and businesses in Phnom Penh on January 29, widely reported by the international media, does not come as a surprise to anyone who has worked on the Cambodian ...

TORTURE AND CYANIDE: A RESPONSE TO : IS TORTURE EVER JUSTIFIED

TORTURE AND CYANIDE: A RESPONSE TO “IS TORTURE EVER JUSTIFIED” — Basil Fernando, AHRC Note: The following letter, dated 14 January 2003, was written to the Economist magazine in repl...

AHRC HUMAN RIGHTS DAY STATEMENT – Effective Remedies Are Ineffective in Asia

AHRC HUMAN RIGHTS DAY STATEMENT Effective Remedies Are Ineffective in Asia Governments Ignore U.N. Human Rights Conventions and Domestic Laws Asian Human Rights Commission December 10, 2002 1. INTRODU...