Seyas Case Is Perfect Example Against Death Penalty
By Vimukthi Caldera –October 2, 2015
Vimukthi Caldera
As the government takes attempts to redress the claims of the previous regime in terms of Human Rights concerns at the international Council, our general public have been wreaking havoc trying to bring “justice” to Seya by re-introducing the death penalty. Even more interesting is that the strongest advocates for it are the very religious groups of Buddhists. I wonder if anyone saw the irony in seeing the girls in lama saree at the petitions. On the one hand the nation gives the outlook of being the “Great Buddhist Nation” or the “Dharma Rajya” while on the other hand, the general public demands the death of criminals. Those protesting for the punishment can hopefully take this time to actually go through criminal record statistics of the last few years across the country. Seya’s case is not new – we have just been ignorant as a whole. Within the week of Seya’s case alone, there were 6 other cases reported within the news media. And those were incidents that were actually reported.
The biggest argument for the death penalty considers how “research” has proven that it acts as a deterrent on criminal minded personnel. To be honest, depending on how one looks at it, there are statistics to both prove and disprove this statement. The first question we should ask then is whether a rapist while kidnapping an individual will actually stop to think “Oh my gosh now if I get caught I will surely face the death penalty”. It does not work that way. Deterrence does not come easy.
However, since the general public is bent on using Seya’s case to argue for it, let me elaborate why it provides the perfect justification not to. There are several problems associated with her case. As much as the situation is tragic and heartbreaking to hear or even think about, the first problem in the whole scenario lies with the fact that her parents had space for neglect. The “kondaya’s” (criminal’s) confession stated that he simply walked through an unlocked door, despite having seen that the open window (which did not have reinforcing metal bars) provided easy access to the house. While we sit around blaming the criminal, we did not think about the fault of the parents. You would assume that in today’s world, parents would take extra measures to take care of their children. Yet, not over a week after Seya’s death, I came across a child with a group of Policemen trying to locate the mother, at the Colombo Book Fair. I could not guess the age of the kid but I guess he was not much older than Seya herself because the mother was breastfeeding her son as soon as she collected him from the Police.
