Jo worked as an editor and programme coordinator for the AHRC and its sister organisation, the Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC), between 2007 and 2010, prior to her MA in Human Rights Law. She authored advocacy materials, liaised on casework with state officials and UN Special Procedures, and represented the organisations at the UN Human Rights Council. She also conducted field research on witness protection and the torture of minors in Sri Lanka, and presented rights workshops for a spectrum of Asian human rights defenders.

Below is a small selection of her work, from over a hundred articles and appeals written for the regional NGO.

Reports and submissions:

ASIA: Council urged to act to protect rights by protecting human rights defenders, a written statement to the Human Rights Council, Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, 23 February 2010.

PAKISTAN: Judicial obedience and a weak rule of law continue under the new government, a written statement to the Human Rights Council, 10 October 2009.

The State of Human Rights in Pakistan 2008: co-written with Baseer Naweed: authored chapters on the Right to Life; Religious Freedom and Minorities, The Rights of Women; Honour Killings and the Jirga (PDF).

Articles and statements:

PAKISTAN: The judiciary must confront suspected state agents on the issue of disappearances, 20 November 2009.

Thankless tasks: Human rights defenders in Sri Lanka & Pakistan, Article 2, Vol. 8, No. 3, September 2009 (PDF).

PAKISTAN: Judge humiliates teenage rape victim in open court, 28 March 2009.

PAKISTAN: As the government has protesting lawyers and activists arrested, hope fades for an independent judiciary and a democratic future in Pakistan, 13 March 2009.

‘The Price of Fighting the State in Sri Lanka’ and ‘How police in Pakistan purchased a man’s penis’ [under pseudonym] , Article 2, Vol. 08 – No. 01, Special Edition: Use of Police Powers for Profit, March 2009 (PDF).

PAKISTAN: The government must crack down hard on Jirga courts and the extra-judicial murders they commit, 3 November 2008.

Appeals:

Urgent Appeals: theory and practice.

SRI LANKA: Stop the torture of detainees at Rajangana Police Station, 8 July 2010.

SRI LANKA: Balagolla police mislead a magistrate and prepare charges against the wrong person, 9 February 2010 and SRI LANKA: Progress is made in a case of judicial and police corruption, 17 June 2010

INDIA: Encounter killings are exposed as murder in Assam, yet police refuse to investigate, 27 November 2009.

PAKISTAN: Newspaper advertisements call for the murder of a human rights lawyer in Punjab; police silently spectate, 9 September 2009.

Campaigns:

Women Speak Out: Contribution to a collection of 43 cross-regional interviews with women on torture, ill treatment and domestic violence from Sri Lanka, including interview 20 and 24. Available as a collection in Ethics in Action online.