Dear Friends of HR SOLIDARITY,

Great News!  HR SOLIDARITY is back after more than one long year of hibernation!

We apologise for this temporary breakdown which we assure you was due to circumstances quite beyond  our control. However now that we have resumed publication we intend making HR SOLIDARITY available to you once every two months,  and  as done before, will endeavour to provide news and views with vigour and conviction. We hope you enjoy this issue and tell us your reaction and remember, your comments are greatly appreciated.

The current issue contains two sections: Part One addresses important current issues in several Asian countries, beginning with the crisis in Pakistan that precipitated with the removal of the Chief Justice by the Pakistani President.

Amidst much fanfare and applause, in June 2006 the much-criticized UN Human Rights Commission was replaced with the UN Human Rights Council. As with its counterpart, the Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC), sister organization of the Asian Human Rights Commission, continued to make submissions to the newly created UN Human Rights Council. Accordingly, 20 written submissions were made at the Council's fourth session held from March 12 to 30 this year. You will find these submissions in Part Two of this issue.

As before, HR SOLIDARITY will continue to be available at  http://www.hrsolidarity.net/index.php. Links to Human Rights SOLIDARITY's sister publication article 2 (http://www.article2.org), the Human Rights Correspondence School and its latest lessons (http://www.hrschool.org) and all of the organisation's web sites
(http://www.ahrchk.net/sitemap.html) are available at the top of the new web page.

We welcome your comments and suggestions for additional changes to the web site. Any written contributions can be directed to editor@hrsolidarity.net.

Keeping you informed,

Shyamali Puvimanasinghe
Editor