SRI LANKA: Former AG, Mohan Peiris summoned to court in disappearance inquiry of Prageeth Eknaligoda

May 18, 2012

The former Attorney General, Mohan Peiris, has been ordered to appear before the Homagama Magistrate's Court and to reveal what he knows about the whereabouts of Prageeth Eknalilgoda, the journalist who has been missing since January 24, 2010. At the official session of the United Nations Committee against Torture, held last November, the former Attorney General representing Sri Lanka as a state party told the Committee that he had learned that Prageeth Eknalilgoda is living in a foreign country. Prageeth Eknalilgoda's wife, Sandaya Eknaligoda, through her lawyers made a request to the Magistrate's Court inquiring into the circumstances of the disappearance of her husband, to summon the former Attorney General and to request him to divulge the information he has on the whereabouts of her husband. The state represented by a solicitor general objected to this request. Yesterday, May 17, the court made order allowing her request.

Meanwhile Sandaya Eknaligoda has also written to the Human Rights Committee requesting it to call the Attorney General and question him about his statement. In a letter written on May 14, 2012 she has detailed her communications with the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) on this matter. We reproduce below a translation of the full text of her letter.

The HRCSL is designed in terms of internationally known principles which require it to be a victim-friendly institution. The very mandate of the HRCSL is the protection and promotion of human rights. However, it is regrettable to note that the HRCSL's performance is disappointing to the victims and it has become an institution which protects the alleged perpetrators. The following words of Sandaya Eknaligoda echo the feelings of many other victims of human rights violations including the victims of forced disappearances and abductions.

"There are medicines even for victims who were subject to cruel physical torture. Yet the mental torture is more fearsome. It haunts in the daytime and the nighttime. Because there are no scars on the surface, the trauma cannot be seen by society."

The moral legitimacy of an institution like the HRCSL lies in the humane sensibility with which it approaches the victims of alleged abuses of human rights. Among such victims the worst sufferers are those who have lost loved ones. They approach the institutions such as the HRCSL with their agonies in the hope that at least some semblance of humanity is still left for those like them in such institutions. When the HRCSL disappoints them the very reason for its existence becomes questionable. 

We reproduce below the full text of the translation:    Read More…