Monthly Archives: March 2012

India: UN Special Rapporteur to visit Jammu & Kashmir tomorrow

Srinagar, (SANA) A year after the visit of United Nations Special Rapporteur Margaret Sekaggya, another Rapporteur is visiting JK on a fact-finding mission. The Rapporteur has been charged by the UN Human Rights Council to examine situations of extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.

The UN Rapporteur, Christof Heyns, is scheduled to arrive on the fact-finding mission on March 26 along with his team. Talking to Greater Kashmir over phone, Rajiv Chandran, National Information Officer of UN at New Delhi said that the Rapporteur would stay in JK for one and a half day.

“The team is visiting seven cities including Jammu and Srinagar during their trip to India on invitation of Ministry of External Affairs, GOI,” he said.

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Bangladesh: Opposition returns to Sangsad at last

A day in which the opposition returned to the Jatiya Sangsad was suddenly made rather exciting. Two legislators, one from the ruling Awami League and the other from the opposition BNP, almost got into a scuffle yesterday.

Taking part in the discussion on the thanksgiving motion on the president’s address, BNP lawmaker Rehana Akhtar Ranu used words in bad taste to attack the prime minister, home minister, state minister for law, a former chief justice and an incumbent High Court judge.

Her remarks sparked uproar in the House as treasury bench MPs instantly protested. Without microphone, Awami League MP Fazilatunnesa Bappy was heard shouting, “Shut up… or I will slap you”. Her words almost triggered a scuffle between her and BNP MP Shammi Akhtar.

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Bangladesh: ‘HR issues ignored in JS’

Human rights violation issues are rarely discussed in parliament, said South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR) yesterday.

Only 47 out of over 1800 call attention notices were discussed in the ninth parliament over the last three years, according to a study the rights organisation presented yesterday at a roundtable discussion in the capital.

Human rights conditions have been deteriorating day by day in the country but the House has seldom spoken of the issue, SAHR said in the study report.

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Statement Issued by SAHR on International Women’s Day 2012

South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR), a regional network of human rights defenders, joins the messages of solidarity expressed throughout the world to mark International Women’s Day on March 8th, 2012.

This year, International Women’s Day is inspired by the theme of “Empower Rural Women – End Hunger and Poverty”. While this is a day for solidarity among women and a celebration of their accomplishments, it is also a day to remind the world that equal rights and opportunities for women are human rights imperatives and inalienable rights of women.

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India: UN report expresses concern over enforced disappearances, mass graves in IHK

The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) has expressed concern over allegations of “enforced disappearance and the existence of mass graves” in Indian Held Kashmir.
“The Working Group remains concerned about allegations of a widespread practice of enforced disappearances between 1989 and 2009 and the existence of mass graves,” the latest report on the subject by the UN body said, Xinhua reported on Friday.

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IDP reports

As part of SAHR’s Displacement programme, the organization commissioned background papers on the situation of IDPs in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Bangladesh India Nepal Pakistan Sri Lanka

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