14 October 2000
UI News Services, The University of Iowa, USA
Going to jail is part of the job for human rights activist Ravi Nair.
Nair will speak to the Iowa City Foreign Relations Council on the topic, “A Regional Human Rights Regime for Asia,” at noon Nov. 3 in the Rockwood Fellowship Hall of the Congregational Church, 30 N. Clinton St. The presentation is open to the public.

Nair is visiting UI as an Ida Cordelia Beam distinguished visiting lecturer. He is executive director of the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Center. He also serves on the Executive Committee of the Geneva-based International Service for Human Rights and is a member of the International Editorial Board of Human Rights Tribune in Ottawa.

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Human rights activist to speakRead More »

18 October 2000
The Times of India

NEW DELHI: The South Asian Human Rights Documentation Centre (SAHRDC) has suggested to the Constitution Review Commission that it should recommend abolishing death penalty. However, till it is abolished, the SAHRDC has asked for strict and explicit standards which comply with the emergent international consensus towards minimisation of the death penalty. The commission had approached the SAHRDC for suggestions on the death penalty.

According to the submission made to the commission, despite the international trend towards abolishing death penalty-114 countries have done away with it- India has done nothing in this regard. Ironically, India has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) but has not followed it by abolishing the death penalty.

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Death Penalty May be AbolishedRead More »

28 September 2000
National Public Radio
There are more than 25 million court cases pending in India. More than half are criminal cases. And many people awaiting trial have spent decades behind bars without ever being convicted of a crime. NPR’s Michael Sullivan reports from New Delhi.

MICHAEL SULLIVAN reporting:
Santo Sananda Avaduta(ph) is a 66-year-old monk in saffron robes, Coke-bottle glasses and a long, gray beard. He sleeps on a thin blanket on the concrete floor of a one-room, third-floor walk-up. Santo Sananda, who used to edit his order’s newspaper, has been on trial for nearly 25 years. He and three others are accused of murder but Santo Sananda says they are all innocent victims of a political vendetta. But he’s having a hard proving it in court.

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Jails And Courts In India Overflowing Due To A Lack Of JudgesRead More »

22 July 2000
Financial Times (London)
In a village near Delhi, two lovers lay dead – murdered by their own families in the name of caste. Samia Nakhoul reports on a social system that condemns millions to a life of squalor and inequality and asks whether it can ever change

The young Indian lovers lay side by side on the blazing funeral pyre of cow dung. When police arrived to recover the bodies, they had already been burnt beyond recognition. Their remains, a piece of blue cloth from a sari and torn shoes, were the only evidence left in the fields of Rajpura village of a crime committed in the name of caste.

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Born to be UntouchableRead More »

31 January 2000
South China Morning Post
NEW DELHI – Human rights groups are alarmed over a proposal to combat rising terrorism in India, arguing a similar law in the 1980s harassed minorities while doing little to stem violence.

Parliament is due to debate the Criminal Law Amendment Bill when it resumes next month.
It would give police sweeping powers to act against the terrorists, who New Delhi says are backed by Pakistan.

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Anti-Terrorism Proposal Triggers Fears for MinoritiesRead More »

16 November 1999
Agence France Presse
NEW DELHI, 16 November 1999 — The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has left some 60,000 Afghan emigres in the lurch in New Delhi by cutting off payments and support, an Indian rights group said Tuesday.

The South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre said in a report on Afghan refugees in India the UNHCR had “betrayed and abandoned” the exiles through its “heavy-handed and partisan” approach.

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UNHCR “Betrayed and Abandoned” Afghan Refugees: Human Rights ReportRead More »