COLUMNIST: BASIL FERNANDO
Burning Points
Basil Fernando is executive director of the Asian Legal Resource Centre, based in Hong Kong. Born in Sri Lanka, he graduated from the Faculty of Law of the University of Ceylon, Colombo, in 1972. His early career included teaching and practicing law at the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka. He has held several United Nations-related posts, including appeals counsel under the UNHCR for Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong, officer-in-charge of the Investigation Unit under the U.N. Transitional Authority in Cambodia and chief of legal assistance at the Cambodia Office of the U.N. Center for Human Rights. He is the author of several books on human rights and legal reform issues. He was awarded the Kwangju Human Rights Prize in 2001 in South Korea.
-
July 04, 2008Hong Kong, China — The Sri Lanka Press Institution and the Newspaper Publishers Association are offering a reward for information on the assault of a journalist last Monday. The organizations are taking the action because the government has failed to do so, as it has failed to properly investigate similar attacks.
-
June 27, 2008Hong Kong, China — June 26 was the U.N. Day in Support of Victims of Torture. As far as Sri Lanka is concerned, the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights did nothing to commemorate this day. Instead the statements from the spokesman for the ministry manifested the usual lack of political will to deal with the issue of torture.
-
June 20, 2008Hong Kong, China — A group of 92 lawyers practicing in the Sri Lankan hill town of Kandy signed a petition this week, complaining about a small group of lawyers touting their services in front of the main gate of the Kandy Court Complex, presenting an obstacle to litigants and other lawyers.
-
June 06, 2008Hong Kong, China — For over a decade now human rights organizations have extensively documented the practice of torture in many Asian countries. It can be said that – except perhaps for South Korea now and Hong Kong – in almost all other countries torture is routinely practiced as a normal method of investigating crimes.
-
June 02, 2008Hong Kong, China — An urgent call is being made for an intervention to save the life of a torture victim who is pursuing complaints against the police at the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka and the High Court of Negombo. Human rights groups are satisfied that there is an imminent danger to the life of Lalith Rajapakse.
-
May 30, 2008Hong Kong, China — There are many forms of arbitrary deprivation of life in Asia other than the death sentence, although it is used frequently, particularly in China and Singapore. These include forced disappearances, killings after arrest and after torture in custody, all of which represent a breakdown of the rule of law.
-
May 23, 2008Hong Kong, China — The Sri Lankan government lost its seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council Wednesday, after coming under intense criticism from many quarters on its human rights record. This defeat indicates that the world is beginning to learn of the enormous repression within the country.
-
May 16, 2008Hong Kong, China — This week the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka decided that prison officers had violated the rights of a man, Tony Fernando, who was severely tortured while he was in prison custody in 2003. Despite the five-year delay, the judgment and compensation are welcome news in Sri Lanka.
-
May 09, 2008Hong Kong, China — From the very scanty news that has reached the global media it is already clear that a human catastrophe of the highest order is taking place in Burma. The number of deaths may be around 200,000. The response of the authorities to this tragedy is totally inadequate.
-
May 02, 2008Hong Kong, China — This week brought the welcome news that a group within Sri Lanka's JVP Party has called for a self-evaluation by the party of its past, particularly its past involvement in violence. A vigorous debate on the political follies of the past is much needed in the country.
-
April 25, 2008Hong Kong, China — The hottest topic in Sri Lanka this week is a press statement by the International Independent Group of Imminent Persons, saying the group quit its role as human rights monitor due to the government's lack of political will to solve cases. The attorney general called their statement a "sinister plot."
-
April 18, 2008Hong Kong, China — An international panel invited to Sri Lanka to assist with investigations into human rights abuses has abandoned that task. The group's members were convinced, after a year of strenuous effort, that they had been trapped in a futile exercise from the point of view of justice and human rights.
-
April 09, 2008Hong Kong, China — The Sinhala and Tamil New Year used to be a time of relaxation and recreation for all Sri Lankans. This year the New Year holidays from April 11 to 13 will be accompanied by sad memories for more than 1 million Sri Lankans who have faced personal tragedies including the brutal death of loved ones.
-
April 04, 2008Hong Kong, China — A Sri Lankan High Court judgment made on April 2, acquitting six police officers charged with torture that causing renal failure to the victim, raises several questions of law, important matters regarding security and also questions of morality.
-
March 28, 2008Hong Kong, China — In the last few months the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka has made three decisions against police officers for abusing their powers of arrest and torturing people purely to obtain bribes. But these directives have not altered the police practice of using the national security law for personal benefit.
-
March 21, 2008Hong Kong, China — The past few days have seen developments in trade union protests against the threats and violence directed at employees of the Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation, the country's state television channel. Ever since the incident that was provoked by Minister Mervyn Silva's assault on some SLRC employees, many attacks have been made on people who participated in the protests against the minister's actions.
-
March 14, 2008Hong Kong, China — With the U.N. Human Rights Council now in session, the spokesmen for the Sri Lankan government have been quite busy -- judging by the number of statements circulated through the Internet -- trying to paint a picture of Sri Lanka as a great democracy and all critics of the government as agents of terrorism.
-
March 10, 2008Hong Kong, China — The decision by the Pakistan People's Party and the Pakistan Muslim League-N to restore the deposed judges of the superior courts, including the chief justice, is important to all who are concerned with post-conflict justice after periods of extreme repression by authoritarian rulers.
-
March 07, 2008Hong Kong, China — Last week a resident of Kandy, Sri Lanka, sent an email to many people asking for advice about the legality of security measures recently introduced in the city, which is located in the hilly central part of the country. The measures appear to be targeting the Tamil population.
-
March 03, 2008Hong Kong, China — The political parties that won in Pakistan's Feb.18 parliamentary elections have informed President Pervez Musharraf that they have the two-thirds majority necessary to form a new government. Yet the government is still using delaying tactics for the transfer of power.
-
February 29, 2008Hong Kong, China — Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse last week ordered the removal of the Director General of the Bribery Commission, Piyasena Ranasinghe -- the only person legally authorized to sign indictments related to bribery charges. Thus the possibility of any indictments has been neatly prevented.
-
February 22, 2008Hong Kong, China — The authoritarianism of Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, backed by the world's most powerful superpower the United States, was severely bashed in Monday's general election. The dictator has been humiliatingly defeated and the credit goes to the secular forces of Pakistan.
-
February 18, 2008Hong Kong, China — Concerning the eighth general election in Pakistan, the question remains whether the election on Feb. 18, will be free and fair. The election, scheduled earlier, on Jan. 8, was postponed due to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the late chairperson of the Pakistan People's Party, which is a major political party in Pakistan. It is believed that one of the reasons for the postponement of the election after Bhutto's murder was the fear of the Musharraf government and its allied parties that a sympathy wave in favor of Bhutto would sweep Musharraf and his decrepit government out of office.
-
February 15, 2008Hong Kong , China — Constant reports of widespread thieving are circulating in Sri Lanka, particularly around suburban town centers. This has gone so far as to affect even the dressing habits of women traveling in buses or three-wheeled vehicles, who have given up gold chains for artificial bangles.
-
February 12, 2008Hong Kong, China — Three prominent lawyers, who had spearheaded the movement of lawyers defending the rule of law in Pakistan and were recently released from detention, were again arrested and detained for a further month under the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance.
-
February 08, 2008Colombo, Sri Lanka — Although Sri Lanka's Independence Day has passed, all people in the country -- Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims and others -- are worried about the future of independence, meaning the future of democracy. However, there is confusion about what the new nation should be, creating conflict and even bloodshed.
-
February 01, 2008Hong Kong, China — Never in recent history has there been such complete disregard for the truth as is now the case in Sri Lanka. This distressing statement is most dramatically illustrated by a saga that has been going on for several weeks, involving media figures and government ministers.
-
January 28, 2008Hong Kong, China — Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf is presently visiting the United Kingdom. The U.K. and U.S. governments as well as the United Nations are encouraging democracy in Pakistan, but what about the independence of the judiciary which Musharraf has vowed to crush?
-
January 25, 2008Hong Kong, China — On Feb. 4, Sri Lanka will celebrate the 60th anniversary of its independence from the British colonial empire. There is hardly any mood to celebrate in the country, however. The political reality is far removed from the people's dreams and aspirations.
-
January 21, 2008Hong Kong, China — As the independence of the judiciary in Pakistan is being treated as a threat to national security by the military, 55 judges remain unconstitutionally retired, 13 from the Supreme Court. Eleven judges are under house arrest and several senior lawyers are in detention.
-
January 18, 2008Hong Kong, China — On Wednesday the Sri Lankan government ended the ceasefire agreement that the previous government had entered into with the LTTE. The same day, 26 people were killed and 67 seriously injured by the detonation of a claymore mine. This incident is an omen of the killings to come.
-
January 14, 2008Hong Kong, China — Munir Malik, one of the leading lawyers who inspired the movement for the independence of the judiciary in Pakistan, offered insights into the dynamics that created the movement, of which the fight against forced disappearances has been a core component.
-
January 11, 2008Hong Kong, China — In the first month of this year two legislators have been assassinated in Sri Lanka, and three people have died in police custody. The trivial manner in which such deaths are treated reflects a deeper disorder; the people have acquired in their spirits the coldness and rigor that is associated with death.
-
January 07, 2008Hong Kong, China — The assassination of Benazir Bhutto took place shortly after Pakistan's higher judiciary was virtually wiped out by the dismissal of 40 judges. With no credible judiciary and a highly polarized society, the country could descend into lawlessness.
-
January 04, 2008Hong Kong, China — The year 2008 began for Sri Lanka with the assassination of Tamil opposition Member of Parliament T. Maheshwaran. A few days earlier a government minister assaulted the news manager of a major broadcasting company. And on Jan. 2 the government withdrew from its ceasefire with the LTTE.
-
December 31, 2007Hong Kong, China — The assassination of Benazir Bhutto, leader of one of the best known political parties in Pakistan set to contest the election scheduled for Jan. 8, reflects the nature of the repression and the absence of the rule of law in the country.
-
December 25, 2007Hong Kong, China — As the Muslim world celebrated Eid and the Western world celebrates Christmas, Pakistan's forcibly ousted chief justice, Iftehkar Chowdhury, is being treated as a prisoner. Held under house arrest, he has not been allowed even to visit the mosque to perform his religious duties.
-
December 21, 2007Hong Kong, China — Sri Lanka urgently needs a U.N. human rights monitoring mission to resuscitate the police and their criminal investigation capacity, severely damaged by political interference. Contrary to government fears, this would not endanger the nation's sovereignty.
-
December 18, 2007Hong Kong, China — Pakistan's dismissed chief justice, Iftekhar Chowdhury, has been named Lawyer of the Year by a prominent U.S. law journal. It is hoped this will bring international attention and support to his country's embattled legal profession.
-
December 14, 2007Hong Kong, China — The continuing killings and disappearances in Sri Lanka are an indication of the insincerity of the Sri Lankan government toward resolving these horrendous crimes. In the past several months, numerous reports have been published with information about the victims.
-
December 10, 2007Hong Kong, China — Munir Malik, former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan, who was arrested for protesting the removal of Supreme Court judges, suffered serious injuries that have led to renal failure after being tortured while in military custody.
-
December 07, 2007Hong Kong, China — While scientists and health practitioners have found ways to cure or alleviate many forms of mental illness, when it comes to political lunacy we have made few advances, and least of all in Asia. As in the case of an otherwise psychologically healthy pe
-
November 30, 2007Hong Kong, China — The attack on the printing press of the Sunday Leader on the outskirts of Colombo last week, as well as the manner in which the attack was carried out, comes as no surprise. Any form of violence can be perpetrated in present-day Sri Lanka.
-
November 26, 2007Hong Kong, China — Every move that General Pervez Musharraf has taken for the singular purpose of his own survival has plunged Pakistan into a greater state of lawlessness. Strangely, Musharraf seems to believe that an independent judiciary is an obstacle to stability.
-
November 23, 2007Hong Kong, China — In the third week of November 2004, two assassinations took place in Sri Lanka. One was that of Justice Sarath Ambepitya, a High Court judge, and the other a witness, Gerard Perera, who was to give evidence before a High Court.The trial into the murder
-
November 19, 2007Hong Kong, China — Since General Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency and dismissed the Supreme Court of Pakistan on Nov. 3, appointing a mock bench in its place, over 3,000 lawyers have been taken into custody and many of the best known lawyers in the country are
-
November 16, 2007Hong Kong, China — Last week this column described 48 cases of police torture reported within the last year in southern Sri Lanka, in an area completely under the control of the Sri Lankan government. These cases demonstrate the widespread practice of torture, mostly for ve
-
November 09, 2007Hong Kong, China — I have analyzed the narratives of torture cases sent by some Sri Lankan human rights groups that work on police torture issues in the South. Altogether there have been 48 cases reported by these groups, which are now available on the Web site of the Asian
-
November 02, 2007Hong Kong, China — Sri Lanka's political reasons for objecting to any form of monitoring by U.N. agencies are merely an extension of its existing rules that such matters should not be subjected to any investigations or prosecutions.
-
October 26, 2007Hong Kong, China — A day for the disappeared will be commemorated in Sri Lanka by the Families of the Disappeared and Right to Life together with the Asian Human Rights Commission on Saturday. A monument for the disappeared was established at Raddoluwa Seeduwa, near Negombo
-
October 19, 2007Hong Kong, China — Quite regularly reports appear in the Sri Lankan press of persons in police custody, having tried to attack the police with grenades or other weapons, being shot dead. The Gampaha police are reported to have killed two persons who tried to escape while in
-
October 12, 2007Hong Kong, China — U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour is currently in Sri Lanka for a five-day country visit.
-
October 05, 2007Hong Kong, China — A Dutch journalist, Jon Bottis, learned a lesson about Sri Lankan policing when he made a complaint about the theft of his personal belongings from his apartment in the holiday town of Hikkaduwa recently. One policeman called him outside the station and a
-
September 28, 2007Hong Kong, China — The Buddhist monks in Burma have been on the streets for several days now, falling upon the last resort under their disciplinary code, the Vinaya Pitaka, to call upon the military regime of the country to step down and respect the people.The people of B
-
September 21, 2007Hong Kong, China — At the United Nations Human Rights Council several European Union countries attempted to assist Sri Lanka out of its present serious crisis by suggesting human rights monitoring by the United Nations to buttress local law enforcement, which has suffered a
-
September 14, 2007Hong Kong, China — A peace activist has said that collapse and normalcy coexist in Sri Lanka and this provides us with an occasion to reflect on what is considered normal by people who have suffered catastrophes and live under conditions, which might amount to societal coll
-
September 07, 2007Hong Kong, China — Several Sri Lankan newspapers have reported that the International Committee of the Red Cross disclosed in a bulletin that 34 people have been abducted over the past three weeks. The Daily Mirror quoted the ICRC bulletin as saying that "families throughou
-
August 31, 2007Hong Kong, China — A matter of grave concern is the insufficient action on the part of the United Nations Human Rights Council to address the growing problem of extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances in Sri Lanka -- one of the council's members. The international
-
August 24, 2007Hong Kong, China — Sri Lanka's Deputy Solicitor General Savindra Fernando has been quoted in the local press stating that Sri Lanka has often been bullied into signing United Nations' conventions. He was speaking during celebrations of the 30th anniversary of the adoption o
-
August 17, 2007Hong Kong, China — A common feature in several Asian countries is that the police, who are supposed to investigate crimes and abuses of human rights, do not have the necessary competence to carry out such investigations. Today proper criminal investigations require "skill
-
August 11, 2007Hong Kong, China — An attempt by the military regime in Pakistan to impose an emergency is generating considerable fear in the country. The military regime seems to be nervous about the serious changes that have resulted in the political climate due to the reinstatement of
-
August 03, 2007Hong Kong, China — Amitha Priyanthi was a carefree young girl until a fateful day in June 2000. On that day, her brother Lasantha Jagath Kumara was arrested by the Payagala police and tortured.
-
July 27, 2007Hong Kong, China — Last week an inspector of police and a police constable in Sri Lanka who were accused of torturing a 25-year-old woman, Angalin Roshana Michael, were sentenced to seven years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of 10,000 rupees (US$100) in lieu of which a
-
July 20, 2007Hong Kong, China — The board of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka recently issued a circular prescribing a period of three months from the date of a human rights violation to receive petitions concerning the violation.Internal Circular No. 7 of June 20, 2007, which
-
July 13, 2007Hong Kong, China — The plight of a Sri Lankan teenager facing the death sentence in Saudi Arabia has received sympathetic attention from the global media during the past week. She is charged over an incident that, according to her, happened while she was trying to bottle-fe
-
July 06, 2007Hong Kong, China — A memorial service to remember Red Cross workers, abducted from Colombo and killed a month ago, was held in the Sri Lankan capital, July 4.One of the topics discussed by the participants at this ceremony was the promise given by President Mahinda Rajapa
-
June 29, 2007Hong Kong, China — The Lahore High Court Bar Association engaged in a symbolic act of ceremonially burying the notorious Doctrine of Necessity on Tuesday. This act by a group of Pakistani lawyers carries tremendous meaning, not only for Pakistan and many other Asian countri
-
June 22, 2007Hong Kong, China — Arundhati Roy pens it as real as it gets, in her Booker prizewinner, 'The God of Small Things' -- "They heard the thud of wood on flesh. Boot on bone.
-
June 15, 2007Hong Kong, China — President Mahinda Rajapaksa is now in Geneva to attend meetings to discuss serious allegations of human rights abuses in Sri Lanka, including abductions, forced disappearances, torture, the forced expulsion of almost 400 Tamils from Colombo, the problems
-
June 08, 2007Hong Kong, China — On the evening of June 1, two Red Cross volunteers who had attended a training program in Colombo were abducted from the Central Railway Station, in the presence of several of their colleagues, by men claiming to be police officers. They were told they we
-
June 01, 2007Hong Kong, China — Pakistan has witnessed in the past few months one of the greatest struggles ever fought for the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary in South Asia. Recent decades have seen attacks on the concept of the separation of powers, the inde
-
May 25, 2007Hong Kong, China — This week, after studying Sri Lanka's practices regarding the rule of law for several years and meticulously observing recent developments, the Asian Human Rights Commission was compelled to announce that the country is now facing lawlessness of epidemic
-
May 18, 2007Hong Kong, China — Several nations in Asia have witnessed frightening events in the past few days. In Pakistan, the military regime unleashed violence against the campaign led by the suspended chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, for independence of the judiciary.
-
May 11, 2007Hong Kong, China — The international community has become increasingly alarmed by the violence now ripping the fabric of Sri Lankan society. This concern is marked by the recent visits to Sri Lanka of Richard Boucher, the U.S.
-
May 04, 2007Hong Kong, China — Shocking details are emerging about the manner in which the chief justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Chaudhry, was removed from his post. They are found in a 40-page petition filed by the chief justice himself through his counsel before the country's Supreme C
-
April 27, 2007Hong Kong, China — The Sri Lankan government recently announced that police powers will be granted to the military through further emergency regulations. When the BBC Sinhala Service questioned the government spokesman, Minister Keheliya Rambukawella, as to whether this dec
-
April 13, 2007Hong Kong, China — Amnesty International has launched a campaign asking people to sign cricket balls calling on all Sri Lankans, meaning all parties to the present conflict -- the government, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and other armed militant groups -- to
-
March 30, 2007Hong Kong, China — The last few weeks have seen the use of the powers of the Attorney General's Department to freeze the accounts of a person associated with a leading newspaper that has turned hostile to the Sri Lankan government. In another incident, a former minister who
-
March 23, 2007Hong Kong, China — Recently I came across two incidents in Pakistan which I could not help but believe were very much alike. One was the severing of a young man's penis by police officers in Larkana District in Sindh Province.
-
March 23, 2007Hong Kong, China — Recently I came across two incidents in Pakistan which I could not help but believe were very much alike. One was the severing of a young man's penis by police officers in Larkana District in Sindh Province.