The group, South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR), said in a statement on Monday that peace in South Asia was threatened by longstanding disputes between India and Pakistan, escalating violence in Afghanistan and Kashmir and post-war displacement in Sri Lanka.
The group, which aims to promote peace, democracy and security in the region, held a three-day meeting in New Delhi where the participants reiterated an urgent need for political engagement through dialogues between governments and concerned citizens. Expressing sympathy with the people of Pakistan on the devastation caused by the recent floods, the meeting called upon the governments of South Asia to set up regional systems for disaster management, dispute resolution and post conflict reconciliation. SAHR groups Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
By: I. A. Rehman
Whenever human rights activists get together to take stock of the situation of human rights in South Asia, they find little to cheer them, except for their own struggles. A two-day conference in the Indian capital last week did not prove to be an exception.
The devastation caused in Pakistan by floods weighed heavy on the minds of delegates coming from all SAARC states, except Bhutan. This offered a measure of mutual understanding and esprit de corps human rights campaigners in the region have succeeded in developing despite the efforts of slow-moving bureaucrats in nearly all parts of South Asia to reduce the space for civil society organizations as much as they can.
However, expression of sympathy and solidarity with the flood-affected masses was accompanied by serious concerns at the inability of the international community, especially its South Asian component, to extend adequate succour to Pakistanis faced with an unprecedented disaster. A particularly sore point was the failure of SAARC to operationalise, or even to recall, the protocol on regional disaster management. It was not possible to understand as to why no member-state could invoke the regional accord.
KATHMANDU, SEP 16 –
The European Commission Directorate-General for Humanitarian Aid (ECHO) has provided US $ 1.14 million to combat food insecurity in Mid-Western Nepal.
A press statement issued by the World Food Programme (WFP) on Thursday said that the money was provided to the WFP Nepal to procure nearly 900 metric tones of rice to meet the short-term hunger needs of 61,000 people living in Karnali region, the most food insecure area in Nepal.
Nicolas Oberlin, Deputy Country Director of WFP Nepal said in the release, “Recent shocks such as unpredictable weather patterns, crop failures, and increasing food prices have worsened the situation in the Karnali region.”
KATHMANDU, SEP 16 –
The blame game between two National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) commissioners and officials has reached saturation point.
To counter the accusation of irregularity in the country’s leading rights body made by commissioners Lila Pathak and KB Rokaya against a few officials, the latter organising a press meet on Thursday charged that the commissioners misused their authority.
NHRC Secretary Bishal Khanal said the commissioners were trying to tarnish the dignity and image of the autonomous rights watchdog by making baseless accusation.
“Pathak and Rokaya, going beyond the NHRC code of conduct, are solely motivated in creating illusion among the general public,” said Khanal.
RUDRA KHADKA
NEPALGUNJ, Sept 16: Women tricked into trafficking have been reluctant to move court as majority of the accused easily get away with impunity.
Of late, there has been a massive increase in the number of migrant women workers, who return home after undergoing immense hardship and torture, while many others have reportedly gone missing.
As per the Human Trafficking Act, the traffickers may face up to 20 years imprisonment. But the victims have become skeptical about the prospects of justice and stopped lodging complaints against the offenders.
Nanda Kala Bhushal of Rajhena-7 had lodged a complaint against fellow villagers Chandra Lal Sapkota and Purna Kala Sapkota who had sent her to Saudi Arabia two years ago but the duo have been released on date.
Bhushal was rescued by Nepali workers in Saudi Arabia after 10 months of sexual abuse by her employers. “They (the manpower agents) had said that I would be provided with a decent work while sending me via India but the situation was totally different there,” Bhushal said. “I was not given anything apart from a set of clothes despite complying with all their demands.”
New Delhi
13 to 15 September, 2010
South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR), a network of human rights defenders and concerned citizens, held a three day meeting on “Challenges to Peace and Prospects for Cooperation in South Asia” at the India International Centre, New Delhi, from the 13th-15th September, 2010.
The meeting:
1. Expressed sympathy and solidarity with the people of Pakistan on the devastation caused by the floods, and regretted that no collective action had been taken by SAARC or other regional bodies to provide support, whereas natural or man made calamities in any South Asian country must be treated as a matter of regional responsibility.
2. Expressed grave concern at the erosion of democracy and rise of authoritarianism in Sri Lanka after the war, and delay in settlement of Tamils interned in camps and called for a return to democratic norms and a humanitarian approach to internees problem. Regretted the role of other South Asian countries in not supporting the UN Human Rights Council proposal for an enquiry into war crimes.
An Interview with Ali Dayan Hasan of Human Rights Watch
by Raza Rumi of the Friday Times
Published in:
AUGUST 13, 2010
Following the August 2 murder of the MQM leader Raza Haider, ethnically opposed factions have killed 86 people in Karachi and the violence continues. Three ‘secular’ parties are in the driving seat – the PPP, MQM and ANP – but all with past records of mutual hostility. The Friday Times speaks to Ali Dayan Hasan of Human Rights Watch on the implications of recent events…
Where does responsibility for the current spate of targeted killings in Karachi lie?
The assassination of MQM provincial assembly member Raza Haider is condemnable and his killers should be apprehended. But the fact is that the subsequent and preceding killings in Karachi are equally unpardonable. Well over 80 people are dead and hundreds have been injured. While the MQM’s anger is to be expected, as a coalition partner in the Sindh government, it is incumbent upon the MQM to uphold the rule of law and not become party to its disruption. There are very many actors seeking to destabilize Karachi, such as radical Islamists and those seeking to damage the transition to democracy in general. The violence in Karachi is a collective political failure of the MQM, the PPP and the ANP and unless it is arrested, all three parties will suffer. In such a situation, only militants and extra-constitutional forces will be the beneficiaries.
KATHMANDU, AUG 30 –
I have been covering crime for the last three years, and the kind of issues that I write about I am afraid don’t count as good news. It is a monotonous routine, and the things I write about usually come from the human underbelly. Of course, a few of the things I have written about have had wide readership. For instance, the arrest of glamourous models on charges of human trafficking.
A lot of crime reporting includes the daily tallying up of what police sources tell us. But, occasionally it also involves shining the light on the police themselves. The media has a short attention span, and what that means for many of the burning social issues is that they get overlooked or ignored even after being visible. Such is the level of impunity within the police force that very rarely feathers get ruffled by media reports.
So it came as no surprise that Inspector Dol Raj Shahi, who was accused of helping an inmate escape from the Dillibazaar jail on August 14, was freed from judicial custody on the orders of the Kathmandu District Court. No surprise either, that the police officers accused of misdemeanor always get a clean chit from the judiciary. What is intriguing in the case of Shahi is that no reporter knew when he was taken into judicial custody. Things became public only when he released. The grapevine has it that he was released at the behest of a former police chief. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
The abduction of businessman Sanjay Surekha is mired in a controversy of its own magnitude. Kidnappers let Surekha off the hook only after his kin paid more than US$ 200,000 ransom. Police later managed to arrest the culprits. But Additional Inspector General of Police Kalyan Kumar Timalsina, going beyond his jurisdiction, put pressure on the investigators to release the detained kidnappers on bail, promising that they would remain in contact with the police, which they never did. A probe panel formed by the Police Headquarters found AIG Timalsina guilty. The probe panel submitted the findings to Police HQ and Home Minister recommending action against AIG Timalsina, but the punishment never came about.
KATHMANDU, AUG 30 –
Nepal’s civil war may be over, but the fate of over 1,350 disappeared remains uncertain.
Kamala Tamang, 29, lost her husband Santosh Tamang seven years. He never came back.
On Monday, watching “Shadows of Hope’, a documentary film about the family members of those who went missing, and produced by the International Community of the Red Cross and Nepal Red Cross Society, she recalled how her husband disappeared and her ordeal began.
“Not knowing whether he is dead or alive, I am still hopeful he will be back someday,” she says, holding her 9-year-old daughter.
As the international Day of Disappeared is being commemorated worldwide, Kamala, a conflict victim, cannot even demand of the concerned authorities that they trace the whereabouts of her loved one.