South Asia Citizens Web

NewAge, March 29, 2009
Inquiry into custodial deaths of BDR men demanded
Staff Correspondent
Rights activists, civil society members and political alliance on Saturday demanded independent inquiry into the custodial deaths of the Bangladesh Rifles members.
They also demanded trial of the BDR rebels in civilian court under general criminal laws instead of the Army Act to ensure a proper, fair and transparent trial.
Thirty human rights activists and eminent citizens and a (…)

Mail Today
EC needs a law to check hate speech by Rajeev Dhavan
Varun Gandhi’s alleged communal remarks during the operability of the code of conduct extricates many ghosts about India’s democratic process and its management by the Election Commission.
Politics and media ensure that we are still ruled by the Nehru- Gandhi family. They are news even when split along ideological lines. Nehru and Indira Gandhi would have frowned on a breakaway sect of the family going the BJP way. But the (…)

(sacw.net)
Text of Joint NGO Statement on Danger of U.N. “Defamation of Religions” Campaign
We, the undersigned non-governmental organizations,
Deeply concerned by the pervasive and mounting campaign by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to produce U.N. resolutions, declarations, and world conferences that propagate the concept of “defamation of religions,” a concept having no basis in domestic or international law, and which would alter the very meaning of human rights, (…)

(Journal of Human Rights Practice 2009 1(1):120-139)

The rapid intensification of the conflict in Sri Lanka during the mid-1980s followed the July 1983 communal violence. Agents of the state perpetrated human rights violations, including attempts at demographic transformation through massacres and the displacement of minority Tamils. The accompanying rise of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam through the brutal elimination of rivals brought another dimension to the conflict. Conventional human rights work, which dealt exclusively with the State, distorted the problem. The new totalitarian cult of the hero within a disillusioned Tamil society portended internal terror, recruitment of women and children, debasement of its own civilians in peace and war, and a barbarous approach to civilians from other communities.