South Asia Citizens Web

We, the undersigned, condemn in the strongest terms the beheading of Rizana Nafeek – the Sri Lankan domestic migrant worker convicted aged 17 in 2005, for the accidental death of an infant – in Saudi Arabia on the morning of 09 January 2013. We urge local and international stakeholders in the labour migration process including governments, private employment agencies, national human rights institutions, and civil society organisations, to combine their efforts to protect the rights of migrant workers, ensure their equal and humane treatment, and stop trafficking, to avert future miscarriages of justice such as the judicial killing of Rizana Nafeek on 9 January 2013.

We note with grave concern that the Sri Lankan Parliament has decided to remove the Chief Justice of the country through a Parliamentary Select Committee, in contravention of a Constitutional determination by the Sri Lankan Supreme Court. The Court had determined that such a decision could only have been constitutionally taken through an Act of Parliament and not through a Standing order. This drastic move by the legislature began after the Supreme Court found a controversial Bill tabled in the Parliament unconstitutional. The Bill sought to grant disproportionate powers to the Minister of Economic Development. The impeachment moves were condemned internationally and domestically by civil society groups, intergovernmental institutions, and the legal fraternity.

The Delhi gangrape case has led to country-wide outrage, with young women and men still pouring out on to the streets to protest against the widespread culture of sexual violence. The outrage has not just stopped at Jantar Mantar, India Gate or university campuses; it has also led to a wave of intellectual reflection on the issue. For most protesters the demand for justice has not stopped with the Delhi gang rape victim, but has led to a demand for justice for all victims of sexual violence. These protesters have forced us to remember a litany of names that get buried by the TRP driven media and a public with a notoriously short attention span. It is time to remember names that we are losing to public amnesia, names like Soni Sori, Manorama, Asiya and Neelofar. It is time we remember another forgotten name – Laxmi Orang.

Indian rock band Indian Ocean and Pakistani pop band Strings performed a new song together on 23 December 2012 in Bangalore. The song, “Humse Bada Nahi Dekha” (There Aren’t Bigger Fools Than Us), composed and written by Strings, that takes a satirical look at the hostile relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.

The Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research and the KiK Textilien agree to the following proposal for the immediate relief and long term compensation of the victims of the Ali Enterprise fire; and for institutional arrangements to prevent such incidents in the future; and to equip workers through information, training and other means to realize basic labour rights in the garment and textile industry in Pakistan.