<div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>About five military officers at 10.30 am on Thursday detained a land rights activist and active member of the Assembly of the Poor at his home in the Buriram Province, after a week of tension between the military and villagers over a land issue, according to the Assembly of the Poor.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Prom Jarana, 65-year-old land rights activist and active member of the Assembly of the Poor, a grassroots network which works to promote land rights, was taken from his home in Pakham District, northeastern Buriram Province by five military officers. </div></div>

<div>&nbsp;</div> <div>The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is gravely concernedto have learned that Thanapol Eawsakul, writer, human rights defender, and editor of Fa Diew Kan (Same Sky) journal and publishing house, has been re-arrested and is being held by the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO). The conditions of his re-arrest and detention are arbitrary and a clear derogation of the Government of Thailand's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). </div>

<p>The Asian Human Rights Commission has been following with concern news of the police targeting of gay and transgendered people in Burma, or Myanmar, and has recently obtained detailed information on a number of cases of alleged arbitrary arrest, detention and torture of persons on the grounds of sexual orientation. The AHRC is troubled both by the manner in which this minority group appears to have been deliberately targeted by the police, and by the implications of these police abuses not only for the rights of minorities in democratizing Burma, but also for the rights of all people living there.</p> <p></p>

<p><strong>Obstacles in the implementation of norms &amp; standards of rights in developing countries2</strong></p> <p>Reading from the abstracts of papers from other participants and guest speakers for this Conference, the idea of 'access to justice', as a theme to improve work on torture prevention and rehabilitation of victims is given strong importance. To lay the basic orientation of this paper, I resolved to review first the literature on how this term were originally conceptualized; and, in developing countries in Asia, where all of the participants have enormous experience in terms of torture prevention and rehabilitation, how they operate in reality.</p>

<p><em>Erik Wendt &amp; Therese Rytter, Rehabilitation &amp; Research Centre for Torture Victims, Denmark</em></p> <p>It is well documented that torture, enforced disappearances and extra-judicial executions are carried out throughout Asia by agents of the state, notably police, military, and special investigation units, who expose ordinary citizens to such heinous crimes in complete disregard of national legislation.</p>

<p><strong>An Open Letter from the Asian Human Rights Commission to the Minister of Justice, Thailand </strong></p> <p>Thank you for your letter of <a href="http://www.humanrights.asia/news/ahrc-news/pdf/AHRC-OLT-004-2011-01.pdf">15 March 2011</a> (No. 0808/1379) to the staff of the Urgent Appeals Programme, Asian Human Rights Commission, concerning the case of Somchai Neelaphaijit, a human rights lawyer whom police abducted from his car on 12 March 2004 at a time that he was representing clients whom police had tortured, and whose case remains unsolved and whose whereabouts are unknown to the present day.</p>

<p>At a press conference in Thailand on 24 April 2011, Somsak Jeamteerasakul and several coalitions of academics, human rights activists, and journalists released statements calling for the protection of freedom of speech in Thailand. These statements were in response to a series of blatant threats made towards Somsak over comments that some people have considered amounted to criticism of the royalty. Somsak's statement at this event is available on the independent news website, Prachatai: http://prachatai.com/english/node/2441.&nbsp; </p>

<p>The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) wishes to draw your attention to the harassment and threats faced by Ms. Yaena Salaemae, a long-time Woman Human Rights Defender (WHRD) in Tak Bai district of Narathiwat province in southern Thailand. The state authorities used an attack on a police checkpoint near her house to search her house and intimidate her. The AHRC believes that this is an outright attempt to intimidate Ms. Yaena and cause her to cease her work calling for justice in the case of the Tak Bai massacre and other cases of human rights violations in southern Thailand.</p>

<p>(Hong Kong, April 11, 2011) Three Asian women rights defenders have received a prestigious international award for a documentary made about their respective struggles, which was shown as part of a major film festival in the Netherlands during March.</p>

<p>For 100 years now, a strong struggle for equal rights between genders has been taking place in the world. International women's day is the opportunity to celebrate women's economic, political and social achievements. It is the day to acknowledge the enormous potential of women in service of the prosperity of their communities and the core societal role they have to play for peace and political and economic development in their countries.</p>

<p>(Hong Kong, March 8, 2011) Two United Nations experts have sent &quot;a letter of allegation&quot; concerning the case of Chiranuch Premchaiporn, the webmaster on trial in Bangkok for charges of lese-majesty and computer crime, one has revealed in a new report.</p>

<p><em>The Asian Human Rights Commission has written an open letter to Asahi Kosei (M) Sdn. Bhd. Company in Malaysia in protest against its possible move to take legal action for libel against migrant labour rights advocate Charles Hector. </em></p>