Responding to the jailing after convictions for “unauthorized assembly” of 12 people who took part in a peaceful vigil to mark the Tiananmen crackdown on June 4 last year, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific Director Yamini Mishra said: “The jailing of 12 Hongkongers who took part in an entirely peaceful, but ‘unauthorized’, vigil to commemorate the victims of China’s violent Tiananmen crackdown is another outrageous attack on the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly.

Responding to reports that Sri Lanka’s State Minister for Prison Management and Prisoners Rehabilitation, Lohan Ratwatte, forcibly entered a state prison in Anuradhapura on 12 September and held Tamil prison inmates incarcerated under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) at gunpoint and threatened to kill them, Yamini Mishra, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific Director said: “These dumbfounding reports go to show that our ongoing concerns regarding Sri Lanka’s treatment of prisoners, especially the authorities’ torture and other inhumane and degrading treatment of PTA detainees are all too valid. They also demonstrate the level of impunity for criminal behavior that is indulged at the highest levels of government. There must be a prompt, impartial and effective inquiry and the Minister must be held to account for his actions.

Iranian authorities have failed to provide accountability for at least 72 deaths in custody since January 2010, despite credible reports that they resulted from torture or other ill-treatment or the lethal use of firearms and tear gas by officials, said Amnesty International following yesterday’s reports of yet another suspicious death in custody.