A quarter of a million Sri Lankans now being held in de facto detention camps are facing a humanitarian disaster as monsoon rains threaten to flood camps.

The government's increased surveillance, harassment and imprisonment of activists is to prevent them from raising human rights concerns that challenge the authorities' image of social harmony.

A detainee was seriously injured and had to be hospitalized as a clash broke out between the Sri Lankan Army and detainees being held at a school in Vavuniya in north-eastern Sri Lanka on Tuesday.

Amnesty International warns that the discovery of the remains of over 160 victims of extrajudicial execution in Pakistan's Swat Valley highlights the ongoing human rights crisis in the country’s northwestern areas.

The new bylaw endorses stoning to death for adultery and caning for homosexuality. It also forbids alcohol consumption, gambling and intimacy between unmarried couples.

Amnesty International has repeated its call for Malaysia to stop using the penalty of caning altogether, after another person has been sentenced to six strokes of the cane for drinking alcohol.

Only a fraction of nearly 300,000 people who were displaced by recent fighting in the north east of Sri Lanka have been allowed to leave government camps since the war ended in May.

Prominent human rights organizations request that the latest draft Disappearances bill in Nepal be amended to make it comply with international law and standards.

Muslim Kartika Sari Devvi Shukarno was sentenced to six strokes of the cane for drinking beer in public in December 2007. Postponed for Ramadan, her sentence is now under review by the Shariah Court of Appeal.