{"id":20813,"date":"2013-05-01T11:00:46","date_gmt":"2013-05-01T15:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=20813"},"modified":"2013-05-01T11:00:46","modified_gmt":"2013-05-01T15:00:46","slug":"there-are-no-human-rights-in-sri-lanka-says-amnesty-international-about-country-hosting-commonwealth-summit-in-november","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=20813","title":{"rendered":"‘There Are No Human Rights In Sri Lanka’ Says Amnesty International About Country Hosting Commonwealth Summit in November"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Amnesty International (AI) has issued a news release today (may 1st 2013), one day after publishing its report about “Assault on Dissent” in Sri Lanka.Today’s release gives specific examples of continuing violations of human rights, and then puts these in the context of the CHOGM that is still scheduled, despite these continuing issues of human rights, to take place in Sri Lanka in November)<\/strong><\/p>\n

As Sri Lanka gears up to host a meeting of Commonwealth leaders in November, testimony from torture survivors, and the absence of justice in their cases, challenge government claims to making human rights progress<\/p>\n

\u201cI was burnt all over my body with cigarettes,\u201d said Kumar. \u201cI was also kicked all over the body. They kept me in a dark cell with no windows, where I had to sleep on the floor.\u201d <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Kumar was 16 when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) \u2013 an armed opposition group fighting since 1983 for an independent Tamil state \u2013 forcibly recruited him in January 2008. He was eventually captured by the Sri Lankan army in April 2009, in the last weeks of Sri Lanka\u2019s bloody civil war. A child soldier, he was given no psychological treatment. Instead, he was held without charge or trial for 18 months and repeatedly tortured. <\/p>\n

I was not allowed to contact anyone outside and never had any visitors,\u201d he told his lawyer in May 2011. \u201cI would hear people scream and cry every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kumar\u2019s experience is not unique. The government won its 26-year war against the LTTE in May 2009, but the abuses that became entrenched over that period persist. The war was once used as an excuse to detain people without evidence or warrants and hold them for years. Today, criticism of government policies could earn you the same treatment. <\/p>\n

Legalized abuse<\/strong><\/p>\n

Journalists, lawyers, grassroots activists \u2013 anyone who dares to criticise the authorities \u2013 can be picked up under arcane security laws and detained for years without access to the outside world. <\/p>\n

The Prevention of Terrorism Act \u2013 a hangover from the 1980s \u2013 is one of the main legal tools deployed by the government to silence its critics. Under it, people can be arrested without charge or trial and held for up to 18 months under a detention order, or indefinitely pending trial. Locked in a sinister limbo and denied the right to a lawyer, they are left vulnerable to torture \u2013 despite a Constitutional ban on the practice. <\/p>\n

In 2009, journalist JS Tissainayagam was convicted under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and sentenced to 20 years\u2019 hard labour for criticizing the military\u2019s treatment of civilians during the war. He had been in pre-trial detention since his arrest in March 2008. His conviction was based on a confession that he said was made under duress. In June 2010, he was pardoned and went into exile.<\/p>\n

Bundled into white vans<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sometimes the authorities eschew legal avenues altogether, harassing and assaulting their critics through anonymous means. Stories of people being bundled into white vans and later dumped, or never seen again, are alarmingly frequent. <\/p>\n

Poddala Jayantha, an outspoken critic of the government\u2019s treatment of journalists and head of the Sri Lankan Working Journalists Association, was kidnapped from a suburban street in the capital, Colombo, by unidentified men in a white van and tortured in June 2009. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey cut my hair and put it into my mouth, then gagged me,\u201d recalled Poddala, speaking to us in March. \u201cThey struck both my legs, breaking one at the ankle. They used a piece of wood to smash the fingers on my right hand until they bled. They said, \u2018This will stop you from writing\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

His captors eventually let him go, saying: \u201c\u2018We won’t kill you now,\u2019\u201d said Poddala, \u201c\u2018but if you organize any more demonstrations against the government, if you speak to the media, we will kill you.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

They then dumped him in the road in what Poddala described as a \u201chigh security zone\u201d. \u201cThere were checkpoints everywhere,\u201d he added. \u201cWho gave permission for this vehicle to go without being stopped?\u201d<\/p>\n

Some weeks before his ordeal, Poddala and a fellow journalist were summoned to a meeting with Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, Defence Secretary and brother of President Mahinda Rajapaksa. \u201cHe was sitting in front of us,\u201d recalled Poddala, \u201cHe said, \u2018If you don’t stop this, something will happen to you.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThis\u201d referred to Poddala and his colleagues\u2019 reporting. \u201cWe wrote about corruption within the army. We wrote about the rights of Tamil people, so they labelled us as supporters of the LTTE,\u201d he said. \u201cThey didn’t like us talking about the rights of the Tamils.\u201d<\/p>\n

Poddala fled the country with his family in December 2009. He was lucky to escape with his life. Fellow journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda disappeared in January 2010, and has not been seen since.<\/p>\n

Intolerance and fear<\/strong><\/p>\n

A climate of intolerance and fear continues to sweep the island as the government\u2019s stranglehold on the population grows ever tighter. In March, Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake was impeached after declaring a government bill unconstitutional. <\/p>\n

Lawyers working on torture and other human rights cases have been targeted and harassed. Meanwhile, the cases of Kumar, Poddala and the many activists who have disappeared have not been independently or credibly investigated. <\/p>\n

Yet the authorities claim that their human rights record has improved \u2013 a claim reinforced by their selection as hosts of the November meeting of Commonwealth leaders. It is a whitewash of immense proportions, says Poddala.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can’t understand why the Commonwealth has decided to do this,\u201d he told us, \u201cbecause no civil society organization is allowed to function there. There are no human rights in Sri Lanka.\u201d <\/p>\n

(Text of a Press elease Issued by Amnesty International)<\/em><\/p>\n

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(Amnesty International (AI) has issued a news release today (may 1st 2013), one day after publishing its report about “Assault on Dissent” in Sri Lanka.Today’s release gives specific examples of continuing violations of human rights, and then puts these in the context of the CHOGM that is still scheduled, despite these continuing issues of human …<\/p>\n

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