Archive of South Asia Citizens Wire

  • Sri Lanka: Police firing on workers protest at the Katunayake Free Trade Zone - A Statement by the Lawyers for Democracy

    5 June 2011

    Lawyers for Democracy (LfD) is shocked at the violence meted out to protesters at the Katunayake Free Trade Zone (FTZ) and calls for an immediate halt to such violent practices and an independent investigation as to what transpired.

  • The Government of Orissa in eastern India announces Attack on POSCO Resistance Within 24 Hours’, People Ready to Resist

    3 June 2011

    POSCO PRATIRODH SANGRAM SAMITI Villages Dhinkia, Gadkujang, Nuagaon; Erasama Block, Jagatsinghpur -District, Odisha
    CRIMINAL GOVERNMENT ANNOUNCES ATTACK WITHIN 24 HOURS’ TIME
    Women, Children Beaten; Thousands Assembled on Village Border to Resist; Betel Vine Farms Illegally Destroyed, District Administration Threatening People Over Loudspeakers
    Today, following two weeks of illegal land grabbing on the fringes of the POSCO area, the administration has announced it will begin the attack (…)

  • The Hawks of South Asia

    by Basharat Peer, 3 June 2011

    The dream of a lasting peace between Pakistan and India can’t happen unless their militaries get out of the way.

  • Statement by President of All Pakistan Newspapers Society re the murder of the journalist Salim Shahzad

    3 June 2011

    As President of the All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) and as head of Pakistan’s leading media group I consider the the security of journalists to be of paramount importance. At present the APNS has officially committed itself to the creation of a national body for the investigations of serious threats to the lives of journalists, a body which the Committee to Protect the Journalists in New York, and other leading organizations in the Pakistani press and human rights bodies have promised to lend vigorous support to. Pakistan has one of the high rates in the world for journalists killings and such an environment is inimical to the functioning of democracy. The government and the intelligence agencies should take the investigation into Mr Shahzad’s murder seriously and examine his last testimony closely.

  • Jinnah Institute’s Report on the Status of Religious Minorities in Pakistan

    3 June 2011

    As part of the Jinnah Institute’s Open Democracy initiative, ‘A Question of Faith’: A Report on the Status of Religious Minorities in Pakistan’ is a research-based analysis of the same. It documents the deterioration in the political, economic and social status of members of these communities in the context of the rising tide of vigilante violence and religious extremism in the country.

elsewhere on the web