Sanjana Hattotuwa, Editor of Groundviews (www.groundviews.org), a website run under the auspices of the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) has been removed from the ‘Senior Staff’ of the organization, Colombo Telegraph learns.
Hattotuwa
Colombo Telegraph has received numerous emails alleging that Hattotuwa had abused in foul language the Administrative Officer of the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), a female, in the presence of other members of the staff. According to our sources CPA first decided to sack Hattotuwa, but hesitated to implement the decision due to intervention by the Executive Director of CPA DrPaikiasothy Saravanamuttu. CT wrote to both Hattotuwa and Saravanamuttu seeking clarification on the matter.
Hattowa has refused to comment on the matter. Saravanamuttu did respond but stopped short of acknowledging or refuting the allegation or action taken.
He wrote, “I am responding to your e-mail regarding an alleged incident at CPA involving members of staff. Incidents of such nature, if and when they occur are considered by the organisation to be internal matters to be dealt with and resolved within the organization. When the governing body of the organisation and its Executive Director are of the opinion that comment to the media on an internal matter is warranted in the public interest, CPA has, as in the past, issued a statement to the media.”
“We seek your mandate to permit the members of Parliament you elect to function simultaneously as a Constituent Assembly to draft, adopt and operate a new Constitution. This Constitution will declare Ceylon to be a free, sovereign and independent Republic pledged to realise the objectives of a socialist democracy; and it will also secure fundamental rights and freedoms to all citizens.”
Manifesto of the United Front of the SLFP, LSSP and the CP (1970)
The shock move to appoint Priyantha Jayawardena PC who is a close associate of Minister Basil Rajapaksaand is alleged to have been involved in many “underhand deals” has resulted in widespread fear and criticism among judicial and intellectual circles in the country, with one of the country’s most senior Lawyers saying that ” this is the worst appointment in my entire life”.
Minister Economic Development – Basil Rajapaksa
Priyantha Jayawardena has gained notoriety and prominence due to his alleged dealings with Minister Basil Rajapaksa and business tycoon Harry Jayawardena.
The move has sent shock-waves within the legal fraternity.
Speaking to the Colombo Telegraph on the condition of anonymity, senior Presidents’ Counsel who have been supportive of the government expressed shock and dismay at the move.
” The executive has the power to appoint, but all such appointments have to be above board. The men regardless of their political affiliations should have maintained a high standard of integrity. That is what is most important in a judge, and if that is compromised, everything else does not matter” they said.
Earlier, Justice Sathya Hettige who was also considered a close ally of the ruling regime was accused of corruption and other malpractices during his tenure as a Judge of the Supreme Court.
Hettige and Justice Shiranee Thilakawardane retired paving the way for the news appointments.
The Bar Association of Sri Lanka and the Lawyers Collective, two legal bodies that have continuously voiced their opinion against intervention by the executive have maintained stoic silence regarding the appointment.
Instead the BASL has issued a letter calling regional branches to discuss the mode of appointment of judges with no reference to Jayawardena.
The Colombo Telegraph also learns that Judges of the Court of Appeal have voiced their displeasure over the appointment.
Defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa is preventing president Mahinda Rajapaksa from implementing the recomendations of the LLRC, government minister Vasudeva Nanayakkara has said in an interview.
The government had ignored a list of proposals put forward by a group of ministers, including himself, to implement the LLRC recommendations, introduce a political solution and to cooperate with the northern provincial council, he has said.
The minister has said the president might be listening more to his brother, the defence secretary, than him.
Defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa is preventing president Mahinda Rajapaksa from implementing the recomendations of the LLRC, government minister Vasudeva Nanayakkara has said in an interview.
The government had ignored a list of proposals put forward by a group of ministers, including himself, to implement the LLRC recommendations, introduce a political solution and to cooperate with the northern provincial council, he has said.
The minister has said the president might be listening more to his brother, the defence secretary, than him.
30 April 2014 Journalists at the Jaffna Press Club marked the anniversary of the killings of two Tamil journalists, Dharmeratnam Sivaram and Selvarajah Rajivarman, found dead on 29 April 2005 and 2007 respectively, in a remembrance event Tuesday.
D. Sivaram, also known as Taraki, was a renowned journalist and editor of the website TamilNet, who was abducted on 28 April 2005. His body was found the following day inside a High Security Zone in Himbulala, a Sinhala suburb of Colombo.
Selvarajah Rajivarman, a journalist who worked for Namathu Eezhanadu and Thinakkural before joining the Uthayan, was killed two years to the day, by a lone gunman in the middle of Jaffna town.
No one has been held accountable for either crime.
Amidst the on-going intimidation and targeting of media workers, the remembrance event by the Jaffna based journalist network, was held in private.
Doctors attached to the Kalutara Hospital have left patients out on a limb and have refused to visit their respective wards, on the charge that unauthorized personnel were interfering with their duties, the Government Medical Officers' Association (GMOA) said. Addressing a media briefing yesterday, GMOA Spokesman, Dr. Navin Soyza, stated that confusion is reigning in the Kalutara Hospital and many other places as nurses have started to play the role of doctors, and are taking over doctors' duties. Nurses have also begun to assume the role of midwives; a male nurse recently made his way into a labour room though it is strictly against the rules and regulations for a male nurse to be present during labour, the doctor said. "These people have disturbed the ward rounds and created conflict situations. The hospital directors have informed these nurses not to do such things, yet some of the nurses, who are in unions, are becoming bolder and bolder, claiming that they are trade union leaders. Being a trade union leader does not qualify one to take over a doctor's job nor does it in anyway qualify male nurses to enter a labour room," he added. He stated that there is no legal binding on nurses to do midwifery, and that the Medical Ordinance has specified that the only people authorized to be in a labour room are the doctors and midwives – and therefore, it is they who will be held responsible in the event something goes wrong; even if it was a nurse who was responsible for any blunder. "The Health Ministry agrees with what we say, yet they are not actually taking any decisive action against it. It seems like they are attempting to keep all parties happy, but that isn't how the ministry is supposed to function – it should do what is best for the Health Sector and what is best for the people," he concluded.
Today, the International Workers’ Day is celebrated on a grand scale the world over. Elaborate arrangements have been made in this country as well for today’s event. We hope the weather gods will have mercy upon hapless workers and refrain from training heavenly water cannon on May Day processions.
However, the problem with May Day rallies here is that they are like Hamlet without Prince of Denmark or Julius Caesar staged with Brutus as the protagonist. Or, they are like a wedding with the bride cooking in the kitchen while the party is on. The worker is denied the pride of place.
May Day events in Sri Lanka have been mere gimmicks to promote politicians on the pretext of celebrating a day sacred to workers. Pro-worker slogans are shouted with gusto by marchers most of whom are politicians’ henchmen bussed from different parts of the country to take part in the May Day processions in return for meals, rotgut and one thousand rupees each. Workers, having enjoyed these circuses sans bread, go back home, cherishing the delusion that they have had their voice heard.
There was bad news for workers numbering well over six million in the private sector in the run-up to this year’s May Day. It was reported that the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF), their lifeline in retirement, had suffered massive losses owing to risky investment in shaky ventures which the government wants propped up for obvious reasons. Greedy politicians had been eyeing the EPF for decades, unable to meddle with it as they feared that trade unions would offer stiff resistance and might even resort to strikes to save workers’ money. But, today, trade unionists, having opted to sleep with the powers that be, politicians are in a position to invest EPF money according to their whims and fancies. This is an issue that workers must take up themselves without depending on their trade union leaders to address it.
It is also reported that the government has not yet abandoned its plan to convert the EPF and the ETF (Employees’ Trust Fund) into a pension scheme. Workers put up fierce resistance when it first tried to railroad them into submission and carry out its decision in spite of their protests. Their demonstrations were violently crushed and innocent blood was shed but its project was thankfully shelved.
Crafty politicians and their bureaucratic lackeys who won’t scruple even to rob mendicants to raise funds in a bid to impress their political masters thirsting for dosh are not to be trusted with workers’ savings––or anyone else’s money for that matter. Every one of them comes penniless, but leaves with a fortune stashed away in his or her offshore accounts.
It is imperative that workers remain vigilant and bring pressure to bear on their trade union leaders to stop playing softball with politicians and ensure that their savings are safe. Else, six million workers will be reduced to paupers sooner or later with neither EPF benefits nor pensions in retirement.
The time has come for the bride to come out of the kitchen, so to speak. May Day belongs to workers and no one else. They must stop offering their services as palanquin bearers to politicians at least on this day dedicated to the memory of intrepid protesters who braved bullets, fighting as they did for labour rights, and perished in the process in Chicago in 1886 for the sake of the working class.
One’s gorge rises when political windbags bellow empty rhetoric and shed crocodile tears for workers on May Day.
Amid an apparently weakening labour movement — that leaders attribute to growing affiliation to parliamentary politics and a neoliberal state — Sri Lanka’s trade unions say there is more reason now to continue the struggle.
Rather busy preparing for May Day, trade unionists on Wednesday were in meetings, giving final revisions to their resolutions and getting things in order for the rallies. With over five decades of involvement in the labour movement, Bala Tampoe, one of the most active trade union leaders and General Secretary of the Ceylon Mercantile Union (CMU), says successive governments have neglected the working class. “Political parties don’t see workers as voters. They are not interested in the working class. They are unable to see workers as people putting in their labour in a capitalist system,” says Mr. Tampoe, who will turn 92 this month.
As someone at the forefront of the massive hartal (strike) in 1953, which paralysed the entire country, he is concerned about many trade unions being ‘trapped in parliamentary politics.’
Ties with India
Trade unionists like him, whether while observing May Day rallies here or following developments in workers’ struggle in the region, remain keen India watchers, for the Left in Sri Lanka earlier had close ties with Indian counterparts.
Most of the Left parties in Sri Lanka are now aligned with the ruling coalition that President Mahinda Rajapaksa leads. Leaders like Mr. Tampoe observe that the real challenge is to mobilise workers outside the sphere of parliamentary politics, which is ‘evidently controlled by the capitalist class.’
Linus Jayatilleke, president of the United Workers Federation, says with ‘growing exploitation’ of workers in all sectors, there is a greater need for them to appreciate one another’s concerns and raise them collectively.
Menaha Kandasamy, General Secretary, Ceylon Workers Red Flag Union says women working in the plantation sector are “made to work much longer than the stipulated 8 hours; we have to start the struggle all over again,” the Hindu reports.
A government security force member, in black clothes, beats a protester outside Freedom Park as other protesters run away in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Thursday. Pic: AP.
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Security forces have beaten demonstrators after a May Day rally held in defiance of a government ban on public protests in the Cambodian capital.
Witnesses said civilian auxiliary police, who are armed with clubs and often used by the government to break up protests, attacked demonstrators after opposition leaders had spoken to the crowd and left the rally site.
Nearly 1,000 factory workers and supporters of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party had gathered on the streets outside the city’s Freedom Park, which had been barred to demonstrators and sealed off.
A ban on demonstrations has been in place since January, following numerous labor protests for a higher minimum wage and opposition demonstrations denouncing last July’s general election as rigged.
There was no immediate word on casualties.
Beatings Mar May Day Demonstration in Cambodi
a - May 1, 2014
Published on May 1, 2014
Phnom Penh Post - "A PEACEFUL rally near a heavily barricaded Freedom Park this morning [May 1, 2014] was attacked by security forces wielding sticks and electric batons as protesters gathered to mark International Labour Day"
(WASHINGTON DC) - The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an independent federal advisory body the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) created to monitor religious freedom abuses abroad, today released its2014 Annual Report, and recommended that the State Department add eight more nations to its list of “countries of particular concern,” defined under law as countries where particularly severe violations of religious freedom are tolerated or perpetrated: Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam. USCIRF also recommended that the following eight countries be re-designated as “countries of particular concern,” or CPCs: Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea,Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Uzbekistan.
This year’s report, the 15th since the Commission’s creation in 1998, documents religious freedom violations in 33 countries and makes country-specific policy recommendations. The report also examines U.S. international religious freedom policy over the past decade and a half, reviewing what IRFA requires, assessing the record on implementing its provisions, and recommending ways to strengthen U.S. engagement on and promotion of religious freedom.
“With religious freedom abuses occurring daily around the world against people of all faiths and those without religious faith, the United States must by words and deeds stand in solidarity with the persecuted,” said USCIRF Chairman Robert P. George. “Religious freedom is a fundamental human right recognized by international law that guarantees to all human beings the freedom to believe or not believe as their conscience leads, and live out their beliefs openly, peacefully, and without fear. Religious freedom also is essential to national and global security. Thus, the defense of religious freedom is both a human rights imperative and a practical necessity and merits a seat at the table with economic, security and other key concerns of U.S. foreign policy.”
Along with recommending CPC designations, USCIRF also announced the placement of 10 countries on its 2014 “Tier 2” list, a USCIRF designation for governments that engage in or tolerate violations that are serious, but which are not CPC-level violators. USCIRF urged increased U.S. government attention to these countries, which include Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Cuba, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Laos, Malaysia, Russia, and Turkey.
“America’s commitment to religious freedom abroad, embodied in the IRFA law enacted more than 15 years ago, must be renewed and strengthened,” said Chairman George. “IRFA was prescient in recognizing that religious freedom needs to be a key component of U.S. foreign policy. The United States must fully utilize IRFA’s provisions including: faithfully designating CPCs each year, ensuring that the CPC list expands or contracts as conditions warrant, and consider taking Presidential actions unique to each situation.”
Or Have America’s Unelected Ruling Elites and Their Multinational Corporations Changed it into a Sociopathic, Quasi-Fascist Police State?
deesillustrations
(DULUTH, MN) - I was one of many progressive Americans who were rudely - and belatedly - awakened to reality during the era of Ronald Wilson Reagan (old 666 himself) and his henchmen who forced through, with gleeful help from devious NeoConservative Republicans and compliant NeoLiberal Democrats, the massive borrowing and spending programs (that put America’s economy into a $4 trillion deficit, a deficit that benefited the military industrial complex, the nuclear weapons industry, and Reagan’s crony capitalists.
Prior to that era I had been the victim of a cunning and wide-spread deception and misdirection, I had been effectively brain-washed at the hands of my elected and un-elected rulers and thought-leaders that run America’s governing bodies, court systems, transnational corporations, and military.
Unlike a recent survey showing the two sides almost neck and neck, 58 per cent of Scottish people would vote no to independence, according to a YouGov poll for Channel 4 News.
Better Together is going to try to frame its central message with a bit more positive language in the future, sources say. It’s part of a re-think that will also see the top of the organisation souped up and tightened up. It’s a reflection of worry that the campaign hasn’t performed well and has lost some ground in the debate on Scottish independence recent weeks.
Water cannon and rubber bullets used against demonstrators trying to reach Taksim square, centre of last year's uprising
A protester reacts as police fire teargas during a May Day demonstration in Istanbul. Photograph: Reuters
Turkish police have fired teargas, water cannon and rubber bullets to stop May Day protesters, some armed with firebombs, from defying the prime minister and reaching Istanbul's central Taksim square.
Citing security fears, authorities shut parts of the city's public transport system, erected steel barricades and deployed thousands of riot police to block access to Taksim, a traditional union rallying point and the focus of weeks of anti-government protests last summer.
The PM, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan – who warned last week he would not let labour unions march on Taksim – says both last year's street protests and a corruption scandal dogging his government since December are part of a plot to undermine him.
The Istanbul governor's office said it had received advanced information that "illegal terror organisations and their extensions" would resort to violence to stoke unrest. But the security measures failed to deter thousands of people from trying to march, with pockets of protesters playing cat and mouse with police in teargas-shrouded side streets.
Demonstrators in surrounding neighbourhoods repeatedly tried to breach police lines blocking the way to Taksim, a normally teeming shopping and tourism district that lay virtually deserted and ringed by security checkpoints.
Some 40 people were hospitalised and around 160 detained, according to the Progressive Lawyers Association.
In the working class Okmeydani district, members of leftist groups threw firebombs and fireworks at security forces, who responded with rubber pellets. Similar clashes erupted in March at the funeral of teenager Berkin Elvan, who had lain in a coma after being wounded in last year's unrest.
Elvan's image was displayed on a giant poster on Thursday as some of the protesters chanted "Berkin's murderer" at police. "This is a day of struggle. We're not trying to reach Taksim to celebrate but to resist … We don't want violence and whenever May Day was allowed in Taksim, it was peaceful," said Caglar, 37, a teacher and leftist activist, clutching a scarf and a homemade antacid mixture to protect against the tear gas.
Police also used water cannon and gas to disperse more than a thousand demonstrators in the capital Ankara, where the centre of the city was on lockdown, with a heavy security presence and police helicopters buzzing overhead.
The authorities issued a similar ban last year, leading to thousands of anti-government protesters fighting with police as they tried to breach barricades around the huge square, which in previous years was a focal point for labour demonstrations.
That violence was followed by mass protests that spread across Turkeylast May, in one of the biggest challenges to Erdoğan's rule since his AK party came to power in 2002.
"Give up your hope of Taksim," Erdoğan said at an AK party meeting in parliament last week.
The prime minister has in the past dismissed protesters as "riff-raff" and "terrorists" and pointed to his AK party's strong showing in elections.
The AK party dominated the electoral map in municipal polls on 30 March, retaining control of both Istanbul and Ankara despite the corruption scandal and last summer's unrest.
But Erdoğan has faced criticism from abroad, not least from the European Union, which Turkey aspires to join, over restrictions on freedom of speech including a two-week ban on Twitter and last summer's police crackdown on demonstrations.
George Clooney’s Fiancée Is a Human Rights All Star – And She Should Speak Up on BahrainImage Credit: Doughty Street Chambers
By Sara Yasin It looks like George Clooney, the man famed for being a confirmed bachelor, will be marryinghot shot human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin.
It’s the stuff that romantic comedies are made of: A hunky Hollywood playboy with a long list of ex-girlfriends finally decides to settle down after a whirlwind courtship with a brainy, accomplished and beautiful human rights lawyer.
News of the engagment has, of course, meant a dig into Alamuddin’s past and the 36-year-old’s long list of impressive accomplishments that make it clear that Clooney is the one that’s marrying up: She graduated from Oxford, has a law degree from NYU and worked on some high profile human rights cases, including those of controversial Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
But there’s one potential spot on her human rights record: Alamuddin served as a legal adviserto Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa back in 2011, when the government commissioned an inquiry into human rights abuses following a violent crackdown on popular protests that first began on February 14 of that year, called the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI).
Since then, it’s become clear that the BICI, and its subsequent report, were used to whitewash the country’s human rights situation. According to the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, 95 people have been killed by security forces since the start of unrest and more than 30 of those have happened since the report’s release.
The country still sees clashes between security forces and protesters, and the question of torture, as documented in the government BICI report, has yet to be adequately addressedaccording to Human Rights Watch. In fact, according to Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain, none of the report’s 176 recommendations have been fully implemented.
Alamuddin is no longer a legal adviser to Bahrain’s king, but she co-authored a book arguing for an Arab Court for Human Rights, which will be based in Bahrain — a move that is certainly eyebrow-raising, given the country’s human rights record.
According to pro-government newspaper Gulf Daily News, Alamuddin was part of a training program in Bahrain to “help professionals in Bahrain’s judicial system achieve international standards in human rights law.”
Those are the very same courts that have yet to offer concrete justice for victims of human rights abuses. According to a Human Rights Watch report released in 2012, entitled “No Justice in Bahrain,” “grossly unfair military and civilian trials have been a core element in Bahrain’s crackdown on pro-democracy protests.”
Alamuddin has the ear of the Bahraini government, as well as the eyes of the world. She’s been working on serious human rights issues in Syria, as well as on drones. Perhaps it is time for her to press Bahrain to take its human rights violations seriously too.
May 1, 2014
