Borella OIC dies from injuries in Hanwella violence

March 16, 2014 

The office-in-charge (OIC) of the Borella Police Station, Chief Inspector Prasad Siriwardena, who was injured due to the violence at Thunnane on High Level Road this morning has died, Police Spokesman SSP Ajith Rohana said.

The police officer was injured when a tree cut down by angry protesters reportedly fell on him, during the protest staged by the residents of Hanwella area today. 

He was admitted to the Avissawella Hospital where he succumbed to injuries.

Earlier today police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse an unruly crowd protesting against a factory in Thunnane, Hanwella by blocking the High Level Road.

Residents were demanding the closure of a rubber factory that they claim pollute the water in the area.

Around 20 persons involved in the protest were arrested, SSP Ajith Rohana said.

The protest had cause severe traffic congestion in the area while motorists were advised to use alternate routes. 

360 drug-related deaths per day 

By Niranjala Ariyawansha-March 16, 2014 
 
 
Director of the Non-Communicable Disease Unit of the Health Ministry, Dr. Mohamed Iqbal, said around 360 drug users die every day. He also said around 1,000 persons die daily due to various causes and 68% of such deaths are due to non-communicable diseases.
 
 
"The majority of the deaths caused by non-communicable diseases are due to heart attacks, diabetes, strokes, high blood pressure and cancer. The use of drugs can cause cirrhosis and any of the above diseases," he pointed out.
 
 
He emphasized that such deaths can be prevented by following good personal health care measures.
 
 
"Causes of non-communicable diseases are not germs that attack cells. They can be caused by smoking, drinking alcohol, chewing betel and the lack of exercise. Nearly 68% of daily deaths due to non-communicable diseases is a cause for serious concern," he added.
 
 
Dr. Iqbal, highlighting the importance of preventing such deaths, said the department is using several methods including posters, hand bills and even street theatre to educate the people to change their lifestyles for a long and healthy life.

Crimea votes on leaving Ukraine for Russia

SUNDAY 16 MARCH 2014

Russian state news reports its exit poll shows that 93 per cent of Crimean voters have elected to leave Ukraine, as the White House calls Russia's actions "dangerous and destabilizing."

Crimea Votes on Leaving Ukraine for Russia by nelvely

US visa fraud case: Arrest warrant issued against Devyani 

A file photo of Indian diplomat in New York, Devyani Khobragade. (chevening.org)

Yashwant Raj-Washington, March 15, 2014

A US grand jury on Friday indicted Devyani Khobragade on same criminal charges contained in the first indictment dismissed by a New York court earlier in the week.

A warrant for her arrest has also been issued.

The Indian diplomat is charged with visa fraud and making false statements that could together get her a maximum of 15 years in jail if she was ever tried and convicted.

Khobragade is in India, after she was asked to leave by the US on January 9 — the day she was indicted first — after India refused to waive her newly-acquired diplomatic immunity.

“A grand jury has returned a true bill today on a two-count criminal indictment of Devyani Khobragade,” said the office of US attorney Preet Bharara in an announcement on Friday.

In dismissing the earlier indictment on Wednesday, New York judge Shira A. Scheindlin had said she had only looked at Khobragade’s immunity status.

But, she had added, “if the acts charged in the indictment were not ‘performed in the exercise of official functions,’ then there is currently no bar to a new indictment.”

If the alleged criminal acts by the diplomat were not committed during the exercise of official functions, the prosecutors were free to come back with a new indictment.

The Indian ministry of of external affairs had seen the new indictment coming and had warned against it.

“We note that the judgment does not consider the merits of the case, or our well-known position, including on the admissibility of the arrest of Devyani Khobragade in December 2013,” it had said after the dismissal of the earlier case.

“Given the importance both sides attach to their bilateral strategic partnership, the government hopes to see further progress in this matter in a manner consistent with international norms and conventions.”

India has long argued that Khobragade should never have been charged, or indeed arrested, at all as she was covered by full diplomatic immunity at all times, citing reciprocity.

India has maintained that the US had no business acting on the complaints of the diplomat’s housekeeper, Sangeeta Richard, as their dispute was already in court in India.

The new indictment means Khobragade, who is married to an Indian American, will be tried whenever she returns to the US, unless the case lapses under the statute of limitation.

Missing plane: 25 countries now looking for Flight MH370

Wednesday  16 March 2014
Officials confirm to Channel 4 News that the pilot of missing flight MH370 spoke to air traffic control after a communication system was disabled by someone on board.


25 Countries Now Looking for missing Plane Flight MH370 by nelvely

Text of new US draft gets tough

By admin on March 15, 2014

The new and revised US draft resolution on Sri Lanka which is circulating among members of the UN Human Rights Council has got tougher by calling for an international independent investigation on Sri Lanka as proposed by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay.

Text of New US Draft Gets Tough by nelvely

Full transcript: Commonwealth Ministerial 

Action Group Press Conference 

Richard Uku (Spokesperson and Director of Communications, Commonwealth Secretariat):

14 March 2014

The Commonwealth

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Richard Uku; I am the Communications Director here at the Commonwealth Secretariat and spokesperson. It is my pleasure to welcome you all here today to this press conference following the 43rd meeting of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG).

Full transcript Commonwealth Ministerial by nelvely

Flawed (Western) Objectivity And The Long Journey Back To Self

By Sajeeva Samaranayake -March 15, 2014

Sajeeva Samaranayake

Separation of ‘right’ from ‘good’

Both colonial and post colonial structures of thinking and action for ‘educating and governing’ a captive population relied on a brand of objectivity and reason that dominated or excluded subjectivities and emotions. As Portia said in The Merchant of Venice,

“The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o’er a cold decree; such a hare is madness the youth, to skip over the meshes of good counsel the cripple.”

This basic flaw in the application of ideas related to both education and governance has distorted them in the developing world. In post war Sri Lanka ‘truth’ itself is confined to ‘facts’ in the sense of ‘who did what’ with a powerful mainstream media and an overwhelmingly ‘literate’ public concerned with little else. The final product is a comedy of Dickensian proportions – well outlined in the opening salvo of Hard Times:

“NOW WHAT I WANT IS, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to facts, sir!”

Such has been the plight and fate of our entire system of education – where learning based on self knowledge has been driven out.

And so we need to get back to two simple ideas of what is Right and what is Good? Western culture (in its application to us) starts with what is right and then seeks to discover goodness. Thus our education commences with norms, standards and definitions of the meaning of words. The traditional eastern approach to education and consequently governance was to help the disciple discover what is good within. It would then set the young person free to work out what is right in different situations. The western approach does not trust the human being so much but seeks instead to control him within ‘established norms.’ Goodness must be found within those limits or you would be imprisoned, put in a mental hospital or children’s home to be ‘re-educated.’

However, goodness as we normally know it is something that is spiritually, socially and culturally conditioned. It is about good communication, positive relationships, caring, empathy, forgiveness and all the so called maternal values of human society.

Ideas as to what is right (usually solidified with ideas of justice, equality, human rights etc) must naturally be derived from this matrix of co-existence, conversation and dialogue so that we can genuinely build a consensus that will last. I have often said that from this perspective it is relationships that build rights – not the other way about. This is the solid and organic bottoms up approach that most ancient societies that now belong to the Third and Fourth Worlds enjoyed prior to the colonial interference. In a word the starting point in this so called eastern approach is the SELF.                      Read More

Channel-4 releases another video footage amidst army’s bluffs: Herein is true picture: Why did the war crimes increase in the last war? -A former Major General reveals

(Lanka-e-News- 15.March.2014, 4.00PM) The video footage that was shown by the British channel 4 from time to time regarding the Sri Lanka (SL) war crimes has simultaneously with the Geneva human rights sessions this time had revealed on the 9th a comprehensive film made in that connection. This video footage shows various scenes of the unlawful killing of a man and woman in semi naked state on the battle field amidst use of foul language in a conversation . The channel four had stated that the soldiers had committed sexually abuse.

Channel-4 releases another video footage amidst army’s bluffs Herein is true picture Why did the war cri... by nelvely

Geneva, India, And American Imperialism – Part ll

By Izeth Hussain -March 15, 2014

Izeth Hussain

It should be obvious that the Government has scored a tremendous victory in Geneva. Of course the final vote on the US draft Resolution is yet to come, but I don’t expect any serious reversals. The crucial facts are these: there will be no setting up of a mechanism for international investigations into war crimes and there will be no sanctions against Sri Lanka, both of which had been widely and confidently anticipated. The Tamil diaspora has rejected the draft Resolution, and the TNA has sent its emissaries to Delhi, which can be taken as meaning that the Tamil disappointment with developments in Geneva is comprehensive. So, the blitzkrieg that was to blow Sri Lanka to bits has turned out to be a damp squib.

How was what looks very much like a SL Government triumph achieved? Information about that is not in the public domain. My guess is that there were two factors behind the triumph. One is that India – which as I have argued in earlier articles can be expected to have decisive clout with the US in matters relating to Sri Lanka – got the US to dilute the draft Resolution so that there will be nothing smacking of the punitive against Sri Lanka for another year. The other is the power of the argument – which the Government has taken to emphasizing in recent weeks – that investigations into war crimes will make impossible the spirit of mutual accommodation that is required for progress towards a political solution and ethnic reonciliation, and therefore the investigations will have to be postponed until after the process of ethnic reconciliation takes hold. In this connection I must quote what Archbishop Desmond Tutu said about one of the reasons why the post-apartheid regime did not resort to anything like the Nuremburg trials: “It would also have been counterproductive to devote years to hearing about events that, by their nature, arouse very strong feelings. It would have rocked the boat massively and for too long”. It is beyond my comprehension why the good Archbishop came to support the call for international investigations in the case of Sri Lanka.

However the triumph, if indeed it turns out to be a definitive triumph after the final vote on the US Resolution, is only of a provisional order. In effect Sri Lanka is being put on probation for a year, after which punitive action could follow if SLG fails to take certain measures. Furthermore the range of action required of Sri Lanka has been considerably widened. It now includes action against attacks on the religious minorities, which could possibly become a very big problem by the end of another year. No one can be quite sure what the situation might be by March 2015. We seem to be witnessing the emergence, in addition to the ethnic imbroglio, of yet another one, the Geneva imbroglio. In this situation we must try, just as in the case of the ethnic imbroglio, to get at the fundamentals of the Geneva imbroglio.                                     Read More

Chennai techies to demonstrate for international probe into Sri Lanka’s war crimes

Posted by Karthiyayini on March 15, 2014

Chennai,Mar 15 (TruthDive) : Chennai is all set to witness a massive demonstration to press for international investigation into genocidal killings, war crimes and human rights abuses committed by Sri Lanka during the decades’-old civil war in 2009.

Coordinated by Save Tamils Movement (STM), the Chennai-based forum of IT professionals, people from various strata of society like students, poets, writers, artists, fishermen, transgenders, human rights activists, lawyers, IT techies, doctors, labourers, Christian minorities among many others are taking part in the demonstration to lend their support for the cause of Eezham Tamils who are still undergoing harassment and deprivation in Sri Lanka under Mahinda Rajapaksa regime.

The demonstration is scheduled to be held at Valluvar Kottam in the city tomorrow – 16 March, Sunday at 10 am.

The representatives of Save Tamils Movement are pressing New Delhi either to make revisions in the resolution passed by United States or table a resolution at UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for setting up an investigation tribunal to aid independent international probe into the war abuses committed by Sri Lanka.

This  demonstration comes at a time during the annual meeting of the UNHRC which later this month will be asked to consider a US-led draft resolution calling for an international investigation into allegations that Lankan security forces put 40,000 Tamil civilians to death in 2009.

STM appeals to Tamils and like-minded people to join hands with them at the demonstration to seek justice for fellow Tamils at Eezham.

World Consumer Rights Day: Sri Lankan Consumers Failed To Raise Their Voice On Illegal Internet Censorship

March 15, 2014

On World Consumer Rights day, Colombo Telegraph wishes to make reference to the plight of Sri Lankan consumers who have failed to raise the ongoing illegal censorship by internet service providers and mobile networks with the agency tasked with protecting the rights of consumers in the country.

World Consumer Rights Day (WCRD) is an awareness day, which is observed on March 15. The WCRD was first celebrated in 1983 and is an opportunity for promoting the basic rights of all consumers, demanding that those rights are respected and protected and protesting about the market abuses and social injustices which undermine them.

In Sri Lanka however consumers have been denied their basic rights by a number of internet service providers who have blocked access to certain websites including the Colombo Telegraph for several months without any legal or moral justification. For months Sri Lanka Telecom, Dialog and Etisalat have been denying their paying customers the right to access this website. When customers inquire into this they get a standard answer that some websites are inaccessible due to technical difficulties. Curiously these technical difficulties are only faced when attempting to access independent news websites and some anti-government sites.

It is reliably learnt that these service providers are carrying out instructions from the government, the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission in particular, in an attempt to stifle the flow of information. Several individuals have attempted to engage the culprit companies through social media but there has been no response from them. Several tweets directed at the official twitter handles of the companies have produced no results. Sadly no customer has had the confidence to seek legal redress for the injustice done to them due to the compromised judicial system of the country.

*Photo credit the Nation – K.A. Dharmadasa is a vegetable vendor at the Jathika Pola

Sri Lanka arrest for missing son's campaigning mother

FRIDAY 14 MARCH 2014
Balenderan Jayakumari campaigned to find her son, who went missing during Sri Lanka's civil war. Now she herself has been arrested, along with her 13-year-old daughter.

Last November, when Jon Snow accompanied Prime Minister David Cameron to the former war zones in the north of Sri Lanka, he was mobbed by crowds of desperate mothers pleading for his help - for any help - in the desperate search for their missing loved ones, writes Callum Macrae.

Sri Lanka Arrest for Missing Son's Campaigning Mother by nelvely

After Sri Lanka Army Shown in War Crimes, Demilitarization Dropped, UN Silent

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 15 -- Just as at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva a revised draft resolution on Sri Lanka has been released, dropping even a reference to demilitarization, near Kilinochchi an outspoken mother of the disappeared, Belendran Jeyakumari, has been arrested. 

  

  

After Sri Lanka Army Shown in War Crimes, Demilitarization Dropped, UN Silent by nelvely

TNA raises issue of Tamil activist’s arrest 

March 15, 2014 
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has raised the issue of the arrest of a Tamil woman activist and her 13-year-old daughter in Sri Lanka's northern Kilinochchi district at the meeting of UN human rights body in Geneva.
 
 
Balendran Jeyakumari and her daughter Vithushaini were arrested in Tharmapuram in Kilinochchi district on Thursday. The police had surrounded their house in search of an LTTE operative.
 
 
Ananathy Saseetharan, a woman northern provincial council member from the north, raised the issue of the arrest of mother-daughter duo at the UN Human Rights Council.
 
 
Police spokesman Ajith Rohana said while Ms. Jayakumari was produced before the Kilinochchi magistrate yesterday her daughter was handed over to child care officials.
 
 
The police said a shooting incident took place in her house and a suspected LTTE cadre had fled from the house. A police officer was injured due to firing.
 
 
Ms. Saseetharan, whose husband was an LTTE political wing leader in the East, was addressing the council in Geneva where she said that Tamils felt disappointed with the substance of the draft resolution submitted by U.S. at the Geneva sessions.
 
 
The TNA woman councillor had pressed for an international investigation in Sri Lanka to probe the last phase of the military conflict with the LTTE which ended five years ago, resulting in the Tigers' crushing defeat.
 
 
The UNHRC is scheduled to vote on the Sri Lanka resolution later this month. The U.S.-backed resolution is to endorse international calls for a credible international inquiry into alleged human rights abuses in the island. (PTI)

Video: Ananthi Raises Arrest Of Tamil Widow And 13 Year Old Girl At UNHRC; Expresses Disappointment At 2014 Resolution

March 14, 2014

TNA MP and wife of LTTE political commissar Elilan who has been missing since being surrendered at the end of the war, Ananthi Sasitharan addressed the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva today, making reference to the TID arrest of a disappearances activist and Tamil widow from Kilinochchi and her 13 year old daughter.

Ananthi

“As I speak here today, the Sri Lanka army has arrested a 13 year old girl,Vibooshika Balendran who comes to every protest crying and trying to find her brother. Her arrest is a threat to every child seeking to protest injustice,” Sasitharan said in her first speech to the Council during the time provided to an NGO working with Women in Africa.

Sasitharan who has been in Geneva speaking with country delegations and diplomats, said that she was addressing the UNHRC not only as political activist but as the mother of three daughters who were still searching for their father.

“Thousands of children like mine searching for their loved ones,” she said.

“The occupying military controls carrying weapons controls every aspect our civilian lives,” she added. Sasitharan said the military was being accused of sexual violence against women and children in the north.

The TNA MP told the Council that the Tamil people were disappointed with the draft resolution on Sri Lanka which failed to set up a commission of inquiry into what she called “genocide” during the war.

“The resolutions don’t address our main problems,” she said.

“As victims we sense a lack of political will,” she said of the UNHRC resolutions.

Sasitharan hailed the special role played by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay and welcomed her annual report.

Watch the video – 11.20 min

Sri Lanka: Siege at the home of human rights defender Ms Balendran Jayakumari

Siege at the home of human rights defender Ms Balendran Jayakumari

On 13 March 2014, human rights defender Ms Balendran Jayakumari and her 13-year-old daughter were detained in their Killinochchi home in northern Sri Lanka from approximately 4pm until 10pm.

There are reports that Balendran Jayakumari and her daughter have now been brought to Vavunia for further investigation.

Balendran Jayakumari has been a leading voice in demanding to know the whereabouts of missing persons who have been arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of Sri Lanka. The human rights defender and her daughter have featured in various video documentaries on the disappeared. Additionally, she has mobilised families in Killinochchi to attend various hearings, protests and meetings and has received visiting diplomats and media personnel. She is the mother of three boys, two of whom have been killed and one of whom is missing, as well as her daughter.

At approximately 4pm on 13 March 2014, Balendran Jayakumari phoned a local politician to complain that her house had been surrounded by army personnel. At 4:30pm an activist and friend of the human rights defender called her and reported that a man intercepted the call and demanded to know who she was and why she was calling the human rights defender. The activist replied that her child is sick in hospital and that she needed Balendran Jayakumari's help, at which point the man cut off the call. After the call, the phone was switched off and no further communication was possible with the human rights defender.

That night, a police spokesperson stated on BBC Tamil that a shooting incident had taken place in Tharmapurum that morning in which a police officer had been injured. He stated that the suspect had escaped but that the house where the suspect was hiding had been identified and two women are being investigated.

In Sri Lanka, the protracted civil war between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) resulted in continuing violence and political tension which still obstructs the work of human rights defenders. The freedoms of expression, assembly and association are seriously limited in the country.

Front Line Defenders is concerned that the house arrest and continuing investigation of Balendran Jayakumari and her daughter are solely motivated by the human rights defender's peaceful and legitimate work for justice and a free and open society in which all human rights are respected.

- See more at: http://www.frontlinedefenders.net/node/25400#sthash.I02APH60.dpuf