By P.K.Balachandran
Various forms of torture are still practiced by the law enforcement agencies in Sri Lanka, but there has been a decline in the number of reported incidents, says Juan E.Mendez, UN Rapporteur on Torture, who toured detention centres in the island nation between April 29 and May 7.
Briefing the media on Saturday, Mendez said that 90 percent of the convictions under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) in Lanka are based on “confessions” made to the police in detention. As such, it could be safely assumed that these confessions were made under duress, including various forms of torture, he said.
Detailing the common methods of torture, Mendez said that these could range from striking with poles and cricket bats to hanging the suspect upside down while being handcuffed, asphyxation by covering the face with a polythene bag drenched in kerosene, throwing chilli powder into the eyes, to mutilating the genital area.
The period of torture could vary from a short time to several days or weeks. Those detained under the PTA are the worst sufferers because they could be detained without charge for 18 months to conduct investigations. Mendez found detainees under PTA being in remand up to 10 years.
He acknowledged that the Lankan authorities had given him unrestricted access to detention centres and prisoners, but he noted that while some prisoners spoke boldly, others said that they were instructed not to complain of torture.
As he was accompanied by a forensic expert, Mendez was able to verify complaints of torture and found them to be factual. He observed that only 20 percent of the cases which came to court had been examined by a Judicial Medical Officer to ascertain if torture had been resorted to.
The UN Rapporteur observed that Magistrates who visited detention centres tended to be rubber stamping what the police wanted done.
The detention centres run by the Terrorist Investigation Department (TID) are not ventilated and are often without electricity. On the infamous detention centre at the Trincomalee Naval Base, which was discovered in 2015 when it was defunct, he said conditions there must have been “horrific”.
Mendez recommended the repeal of the PTA and its replacement by a detention law which gives no room at all for torture. He also suggested that there should be no arbitrary arrests, including abductions in unmarked “White Vans”. When he raised the issue of White Van abductions, officials said that they had ceased to take place.
The UN Rapporteur said that the police should allow a detainee immediate access to a lawyer not after 24 hours of detention, as now.
REPORT ON INDEPENDENCE JUDICIARY
In her report, the UN Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Monica Pinto, said that the Lankan judiciary must not only evolve a Code of Conduct for judges, but it must address the glaring ethnic imbalance in its composition.
There is only one Tamil-speaking judge in the higher judiciary.In the Supreme Court, only the Chief Justice is Tamil-speaking.There is none in the Court of Appeal. Likewise, there is a marked ethnic imbalance among the government’s law officers, Pinto pointed out.
Courtesy:New Indian Express