Amnesty calls on NZ to do more for fleeing Rohingya as it braces for more sailings

Posted By: admin-October 21, 2015

As the monsoon season draws to a close, sailings of refugees and the persecuted Rohingya population fleeing Myanmar are expected to increase.

But New Zealand is facing criticism over its minor contribution to international efforts from Amnesty International.

Amnesty has released a new report, Deadly Journeys, detailing the harrowing ordeal of Rohingya, fleeing persecution during the “sailing season” earlier this year. 

Refugees swapped “one nightmare for another”, with “women, men and children trafficked, held in hellish conditions, beaten or killed for ransom”.

The report also detailed fears that hundreds, “maybe thousands, more refugees and migrants have perished at sea than first estimated”. 

The report is based on interviews with more than 100 Rohingya refugees – mainly victims of human trafficking, and many of them children – who reached Indonesia after fleeing Myanmar or Bangladesh across the Andaman Sea.

“New Zealand, as a member of the Bali Process Steering Group and a key country in the region for addressing the issue of people-smuggling, must step up efforts to help one of the main populations facing abuse and mistreatment, particularly unaccompanied minors,” an Amnesty New Zealand spokesperson said. 

“As part of the solution to provide real alternatives to those fleeing persecution in the region, Amnesty International is calling on New Zealand to double the country’s refugee quota and increase resettlement places for unaccompanied minors.

“New Zealand should also provide greater assistance with search and rescue operations and increase funding to the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, for processing asylum seekers in regional countries.”

Amnesty NZ executive director Grant Bayldon said “The scale of human suffering” was unacceptable.

“People who have exchanged one nightmare for another, have fled appalling persecution – particularly those in Myanmar.

“Only to fall into the hands of people smugglers who’ve put them in hellish conditions, held many to ransom… and then for many of them to have been abandoned at sea and turned away from reaching safety – really it’s hard to imagine a more disastrous chain of events.”

Bayldon said the international community should not be surprised if it all began again. 

“It’s essential that the world is prepared for this.” 

New Zealand could play a constructive role.

“Unlike Australia, it still has a pretty good international reputation in the region in the way it deals with refugees,” he said. 

“However in light of not having increased our own refugee quota in almost 30 years, and still having tiny numbers – we sit 90th in the world per capita in refugee intake – clearly New Zealand is lacking in credibility if it’s telling countries in the region to look after refugees.”

The Government bowed to public pressure last month over the Syrian refugee crisis. 

Uproar after two children burned alive, Haryana police arrest four

The father (bottom C) of two children who were burnt alive, with his hands bandaged, wails next to the bodies of his children wrapped in white shrouds, as he along with other villagers block a national highway during a protest against the crime at Ballabhgarh in Haryana,...

BALLABHGARH, INDIA | BY ADNAN ABIDI-Wed Oct 21, 2015

Police in Haryana have arrested four men over allegations that they burnt alive two low-caste children, an official said on Wednesday, a case that triggered a street protest and drew condemnation from an opposition leader.

Authorities ruled out caste violence as a motive for the crime but India has a long history of such incidents, and the attack will feed concerns over rising intolerance after the rumour-fuelled killing of a Muslim man by a Hindu mob recently.

On Wednesday, two men carried the bodies of the dead children wrapped in white shrouds during a protest by about 1,000 people who blocked a major highway to Agra, home to the Taj Mahal, and argued with police.

Police in Haryana said a group of men killed the children, a girl of 8 months and her two-year-old brother, by setting alight gasoline poured through the windows of their home in Ballabhgarh, about 50 km from the capital, New Delhi.

The parents, who hail from the bottom rungs of India's millennia-old social hierarchy rooted in the Hindu religion, were also injured in the attack, a state police official said.

The incident was a family feud and not related to caste violence, however, said Jawahar Yadav, an official from the office of Haryana's chief minister.

"This is a fight among families, not about castes. It is an unfortunate incident," Yadav told television channel CNN-IBN.

The family has alleged it was attacked by men belonging to a higher caste, in revenge for separate killings a year ago, the state police officer said, asking not to be named because he was not authorised to discuss the case with the media.Family members could not immediately be reached for comment.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh has asked the state government for a report on the incident.

Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition Congress party, visited the area and criticised central and state officials for not making better efforts to protect poor people.

Caste-related violence has gripped India for decades.

In August, clashes erupted in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Gujarat after police arrested Hardik Patel, a young leader of the influential Patel clan, who organised a rally to demand more government jobs for his community.

Last month, a village council in Uttar Pradesh denied allegations that it ordered two young sisters to be raped because their brother eloped with a higher caste woman. The disavowal followed an international outcry triggered by the purported ruling.

(Writing by Aditya Kalra and Andrew MacAskill; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

India: Stop Harassment Against Human Rights Lawyers Ms Shalini Gera and Ms Isha Khandelwal

Is this an attempt to intimidate human rights lawyers and prevent them from exposing human rights abuses?

Human rights defender Mr Antonio Nercua Ablon

William Nicholas Gomes, Human Rights Ambassador-Oct-20-2015

(LONDON) - October 16, 2015 at 3:29pm
Mr. Shri Nanredra Damodardas Modi,
Prime Minister of India
Prime Minister’s Office
Room number 152, South Block
New Delhi, India
Fax: + 91 11 2301 6857
E-mail: pmosb@pmo.nic.in / manmo@sansad.in

Your Excellency,

I am William Nicholas Gomes, Human rights defender and Freelance journalist. I would like to draw your attention to the following case.

On 6 October 2015, human rights lawyers Ms Shalini Gera and Ms Isha Khandelwal learned about the resolution of the Bastar Bar Association, prohibiting any lawyer, who is not registered with the local Bar Council to practice in the Jagdalpur courts.

This resolution, which appears to be unlawful, prevents them from representing their clients in Jagdalpur, as they are registered with the Delhi State Bar Council.

Shalini Gera and Isha Khandelwal who are human rights lawyers and founders of the Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group (JagLAG) provide free legal aid to Adivasi people in Bastar, Dantewada, Kanker, Sukma, and Bijapur.

A number of Adivasi's have been harassed and accused of having connections to the violent movement linked to the Communist party, known as Maoists or Naxals.

Furthermore, JagLAG has been working on cases involving police, such as cases of torture in custody, illegal detention and extra-judicial killings.

On 6 October 2015, Shalini Gera and Isha Khandelwal learnt from the local newspapers about the unlawful resolution of the Bastar Bar Association, which greatly effects their human right work.

The resolution, which was passed on 3 October at their general meeting of the Bastar Bar Association, prohibits any lawyer, who is not registered with the Chhattisgarh Bar Council to practice before the Jagdalpur Courts.

Thus it prevents the human rights lawyers from representing their clients in Jagdalpur, as they are registered with the Delhi State Bar Council. The request of JagLAG to receive a copy of the resolution was refused by the Bar.

All lawyers practising in India are registered with the regional Bar Council, which is a statutory body with legal authority to set its own rules regarding the criteria to practice law in that region.

The Bar Council of Chhattisgarh region, which includes Bastar, allows outside lawyers to practise in the region under the condition that their legal credentials are countersigned by a local lawyer.

The local Bar Associations, like the Bastar Bar Association, have no authority to overrule the regional Bar Council regulations and to prevent a lawyer from practising in any court in the country under the Section 30 of the Advocates Act of India.

The recent resolution of the Bastar Bar Association thus appears to be unlawful.

This resolution is believed to be connected to the work of Shalini Gera and Isha Khandelwal, in particular their work in cases involving the police.

Among their clients is human rights journalist, Mr Santosh Yadav, who has been falsely accused of connections to Naxals and held in detention in South Bastar since his arrest on 29 September 2015. While in detention he has been physically abused by police officers.

Shalini Gera and Isha Khandelwal have suffered repeated harassment due to their work in the region. They have both received personal anonymous threats. Anonymous police complaints have been lodged against them on the grounds that they do not possess the required legal credentials.

Subsequently, the Bastar Police began an inquiry and did not close the procedure despite the fact that the human rights lawyers had presented their documentation.

I express my concern at the local Bar resolution and the ongoing harassment against Shalini Gera and Isha Khandelwal and I believe them to be an attempt to intimidate the human rights lawyers and to prevent them from doing their legitimate work in exposing human rights abuses.

I urge the authorities in India to:

1. Immediately withdraw the resolution of the Bastar Bar Association, as I believe it to violate the rights of Shalini Gera and Isha Khandelwal as legally registered lawyers;
2. Take all necessary measures to guarantee their physical and psychological integrity and security of Shalini Gera and Isha Khandelwal;
3. Guarantee in all circumstances that all human rights defenders in India are able to carry out their legitimate human rights activities without fear of reprisals and free of all restrictions.

Yours sincerely,

William Nicholas Gomes
Human Rights Defender & Freelance Journalist

______________________________

Salem-News.com Human Rights Ambassador William Nicholas Gomes is a Bangladeshi journalist, human rights activist. As an investigative journalist has written widely for leading European and Asian media outlets. William Gomes concentrates on humanity; his advocacy of human beings in dangerous, preventable circumstances does in fact lead to some of our most vital reports, because they give a voice to the voiceless.
William Gomes said, "I am against any form of intolerance alongside xenophobia and antisemitism. I am and will always stand strong in combating all forms of racial discrimination and intolerance any where." Read his letters and reports to see what the new generation of world journalists are doing to preserve human rights worldwide. 

Assad makes suprise visit to Russia to meet Putin

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad flies to Moscow to thank Russian Vladimir Putin in person for his military support.

WEDNESDAY 21 OCTOBER 2015

The surprise visit was Assad's first foreign trip since the outbreak of the Syrian crisis in 2011, and came three weeks after Russia launched a campaign of air strikes against rebels and Islamist militants in Syria that have helped strengthen Assad's forces.

The Kremlin kept the visit quiet until this morning, broadcasting a meeting between the two men in the Kremlin and releasing a transcript of an exchange they had. It did not say whether the Syrian leader was still currently in Moscow or had now returned home.

Putin said he hoped progress on the military front would be followed by moves towards a political solution in Syria, bolstering western hopes Moscow will use its increased influence on Damascus to coerce Assad into talking to his opponents.

The Kremlin has cast its intervention in Syria, its biggest in the Middle East since the 1991 Soviet collapse, as a common-sense move designed to roll back "international terrorism" in the face of what it says is ineffective action from Washington against Islamic State.

With Iran having long been a strong Syrian government ally, the fact that Assad chose to visit Moscow before Tehran is likely to be interpreted by some as a sign that Russia has now emerged as Assad's most important foreign friend.

Gratitude

"First of all I wanted to express my huge gratitude to the whole leadership of the Russian Federation for the help they are giving Syria," Assad told Putin.

"If it was not for your actions and your decisions the terrorism which is spreading in the region would have swallowed up a much greater area and spread over an even greater territory."

Assad emphasised how Russia was acting according to international law, praising Moscow's political approach to the Syrian crisis which he said had ensured it had not played out according to "a more tragic scenario".

"Terrorism is a real obstacle to a political solution," said Assad. "And of course the whole (Syrian) people want to take part in deciding the fate of their state, and not just the leadership."

Political solution

Putin said Russia was ready to help find a political solution and praised the Syrian people for standing up to the militants "almost on their own", saying the Syrian army had notched up serious battlefield success in recent times.

He said Russia had felt compelled to act in Syria because of the threat Islamist militants fighting Assad's forces there posed to its own security.

"Unfortunately on Syrian territory there are about 4,000 people from the former Soviet Union - at a minimum – fighting government forces with weapons in their hands," said Putin.

"We, it goes without saying, cannot allow them to turn up on Russian territory after they have received battlefield experience and undergone ideological instruction."

"If it was not for your actions the terrorism ...would have swallowed up a much greater area"

Putin said that positive developments on the military front in Syria would provide a basis for a long-term political solution, involving all political forces, ethnic and religious groups.

"We are ready to make our contribution not only in the course of military actions in the fight against terrorism, but during the political process," Putin said, according to the transcript released by the Kremlin.

"This will, of course, be in close contact with other world powers and with countries of the region which are interested in a peaceful resolution of the conflict," Putin said.

China to ban ivory trade “within a year or so,” as pressure mounts on Hong Kong

WildAide and WWF-Hong Kong obtained this video, shot by independent investigators. The groups claim the footage proves Hong Kong has become the global hub for the illegal ivory trade. (WildAid and WWF-Hong Kong)

By Simon Denyer-October 21

HONG KONG — It could be the beginning of the end for the illicit trade in ivory.

Last month, on a state visit to Washington, Chinese President Xi Jinping promised to halt the commercial trade in ivory in his country, but gave few details about the timing and extent of such a move.

Now, a senior U.S. government official says that the Chinese ban could be in place within a year or so, with very narrow exceptions, describing it as a “huge” deal.

Such a move, conservationists say, would be a major step towards ending the poaching crisis that is decimating Africa’s elephant herds.

“This commitment goes all the way up to President Xi,” Catherine Novelli, U.S. undersecretary for economic growth, energy, and the environment in the State Department, said in a telephone interview. “They have made it very clear this is what they want to do.”

[‘Ivory laundry of the world’: Traders in Hong Kong offer poached ivory for sale]

But even as optimism mounts, the spotlight is turning to Hong Kong, the former British enclave that has long been a center of the global trade in wildlife trafficking.

There, the authorities’ reluctance to clamp down on legal ivory traders has allowed a much larger illegal trade to flourish, conservationists say, and has established the territory as a key transit point in the smuggling of ivory from Africa into China.

“Hong Kong has always been the ivory laundry of the world,”said Peter Knights, executive director of WildAid in San Francisco. “The moral imperative has shifted from China and the U.S, who are in a position to say they are going to close the ivory trade down, to Hong Kong to do the same.”

First, the good news.

The United States and China have agreed to enact “nearly complete bans” on ivory import and export, “and to take significant and timely steps to halt the domestic commercial trade of ivory.”

China is by far the biggest ivory market in the world, with a flourishing domestic ivory carving and trading industry that is supposed to use only old stockpiles but actually provides cover for the laundering of huge quantities of newly poached ivory.

Ivory remains a status symbol in China, but outlawing the domestic trade would go a long way to making it as unfashionable there as it is in the West.

[YaoMing aims to save Africa's elephants by persuading China to give up ivory]

Wildlife groups said the U.S.-China accord offers real hope for Africa’s elephants, now being slaughtered in the tens of thousands every year. Knights called it a “historic” step.

In the past, China had argued that ivory carving was part of its cultural heritage, but it has gradually come to realize that its role in the poaching industry was damaging its global reputation, particularly in Africa.

Novelli said she expected China to ban its domestic ivory trade “sometime within the next year or so,” with “extremely narrow” exceptions – perhaps for items like musical instruments or certain antiques.

Authorities there are already reviewing what regulations needed to be amended, and discussing with experts how to go about buying back existing ivory stockpiles, she said.

Time is of the essence.

Africa’s elephant herds have dwindled from around 1.2 million 40 years ago to between 400,000 and 500,000 now. Central African forest elephants could be extinct within the next decade on current trends.

Attention is now swinging towards Hong Kong. In a September report, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said the city had the largest retail ivory market in the world, while an investigation by Save The Elephants found that well over 90 percent of the ivory objects here are bought by mainland Chinese tourists.

Hong Kong allows ivory stockpiled before a 1989 global ban to be freely sold, but, under international regulations, it must not be taken out of the territory. Traders have to register the weight of their stockpiles, but critics say there is no regulation on sales.

Video filmed by independent investigators for WildAid and WWF, and supplied to the Washington Post, showed traders boasting they could easily replenish their pre-1989 stock with newly poached ivory.

Indeed, official figures show barely any reduction in ivory stockpiles in Hong Kong for several years, despite a surge in tourism from China.

Hong Kong’s customs seized a record nearly 9 tons of ivory in 2013, and last year the government began publicly destroying tons of seized ivory from its stockpile, as a signal of its commitment to ending the trade.

But wildlife experts say Hong Kong has been unwilling to move against the retail traders whose industry provides a cover for smuggling, while penalties for smuggling are low. Only a total ban on the ivory trade, as China has promised, would give police the power they need to stem smuggling, they argue.

Christine Loh, Hong Kong’s under secretary for the environment, said her government was moving to “plug holes” in the system, but argued traders had a “legitimate interest” in the ivory business, and would have to be compensated for their stockpiles, a potentially costly process.

Knights argues that traders have had 26 years to get rid of their old stockpiles, have been constantly replenishing them with poached ivory, and could simply be given another six months to clear their shelves, without compensation.

After a series of successful public education campaigns by civic groups, public opinion in Hong Kong supports a ban on ivory trading.

So why is the Hong Kong government so reluctant to act?

It is either corruption or bureaucratic inertia, says Knights. “The bureaucrats’ bottom line -- don’t ever admit to a problem, or you might have to do something about it, and if you do that, you might get something wrong and get blamed.”

Nevertheless, Loh said Hong Kong would collaborate with the Chinese authorities. While the autonomous territory has its own legislative process, a ban on the ivory trade in China would make it “untenable” for Hong Kong not to also tighten its laws, she said.

In the United States, President Obama has tightened restrictions on the ivory trade, while California this month becoming the third state to ban ivory sales.

The administration intends to restrict the import of ivory by hunters to “two elephant trophies per year per hunter,” Novelli said, and only from countries where it determines that income from hunting “contributes to the survival of the species.”

That won’t be enough to satisfy everyone, given the outcry that followed the killing of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe by a Minnesota dentist, or this month’s shooting of one of Africa’s biggest elephants by a German hunter.

But Novelli said that “as long as it is severely regulated and under tight conditions, we did not think we should do a complete ban” on trophy hunting.

Xu Jing contributed to this report.

Read more:

China pledges to end ivory trading — but says the U.S. should, too

Chinese officials accused of smuggling ivory during state visit to Tanzania

Prosecutors say this 66-year-old Chinese woman is one of Africa’s most notorious smugglers

China's first 'ivory crush' signals it may join global push to protect African elephants

Simon Denyer is The Post’s bureau chief in China. He served previously as bureau chief in India and as a Reuters bureau chief in Washington, India and Pakistan.

Research Shows This One Plant Kills Cancer And Stops Diabetes!

Healthy Way of Life

October 14, 2015

According to Dr. Frank Shallenberger, when it comes to fighting cancer, he’s always looking for natural substances that interrupt the odd metabolism of cancer cells. Some of his discoveries include resveratrol, green tea, Seanol, and others. Most recently, he found a fruit that was effective in killing pancreatic cancer cells. The fruit is called “bitter melon” and is popular in Okinawa, Japan.

When bitter melon juice is diluted to 5% in water, it proved itself to be incredibly damaging to pancreatic cancer cell lines. According to researchers, bitter melon juice reduced the viability of two cancer cell lines by 90% and killed the remaining two lines at a rate of 98%.

So, great, these studies work in cancer cells in a dish. But do they work in animals? Will they work in people? Apparently yes. University of Colorado researchers administered bitter melon doses to mice and found a 64% reduction in pancreatic tumor size without any kind of side effect.

The dose was the same as six grams of powder for the average sized human. Bitter melon may also help diabetics. Researchers found that bitter melon helps ameliorate metabolic problems by its effects on glucose metabolism.

Of course, if you have cancer or diabetes, talk with your doctor about rolling in bitter melon treatment with other treatments to have the highest rate of success against cancer.

Sri Lanka killings: Channel 4 reports 'unlikely to be faked'

After years of Sri Lankan government denials, Channel 4's evidence of war crimes and extra-judicial killings in Sri Lanka's civil war is vindicated by a leaked government report, writes Callum Macrae.

TUESDAY 20 OCTOBER 2015
A long-delayed investigation ordered by Sri Lankan government will conclude that video evidence of war crimes and extra-judicial killings presented by Channel 4 in a series of news reports and documentaries is "unlikely to be faked" according to a leaked draft obtained by Channel 4 News.

Sri Lanka Killings Channel 4 Reports 'Unlikely to Be Faked' by Thavam Ratna

Sri Lanka troops committed war crimes: Rajapaksa's panel

By Our Political Correspondent-Oct 20, 2015

ECONOMYNEXT - The war crimes investigation set up by former president Mahinda Rajapaksa has made startling revelations that senior military commanders should be hauled up for criminal prosecutions.

The Maxell Paranagama commission appointed in 2013 in what many at the time feared was an attempt to white wash the security forces has surprisingly produced a shockingly frank report amounting to an indictment of the former regime.

The Paranagama commission was asked to investigate the credibility of the major war crimes allegations that were levelled against government forces after crushing the Tamil Tiger rebels and declaring an end to 37 years of ethnic war in May 2009.

The report dated August 2015, eight months after the defeat of Rajapaksa, noted that the allegations of war crimes were not only credible, but there were specific instances where criminal prosecutions of military commanders was warranted.

Turning the military's own investigations on its head, Paranagama found that the controversial Channel 4 documentary, “No Fire Zone - Sri Lanka Killing Fields” was genuine and its allegations merited a judicial investigation.

The report, however, says that the military cannot be expected to probe any of the allegations with any degree of credibility and that there should be an independent judicial investigation under international supervision.

The 178 – report, with even more pages of annexures, goes far beyond the UN human Rights Council resolution which only suggested that there could be foreign involvement in a domestic war crimes mechanism.

Justice Paranagama suggests that there should be a separate war crimes division within the Sri Lankan legal system and insists that Sri Lanka is obliged to fall in line with international humanitarian law in line with Sri Lanka's own constitution. 

-Channel 4 allegations credible-  

His recommendations are diametrically opposed to the line of the government that appointed him. Rajapaksa and his administration had always maintained that not a single civilian was killed by troops and the Channel 4 documentary was a fabrication.

"The Commission is of the view that the material shown in Channel 4 - shorn of its theatrical and dramatic presentation and of the occasionally extravagant language used - does show, however, that there was material enough to justify a judge-led investigation," the Paranagama commission said.

It said another high profile case involving the execution of the top Tamil Tiger political leadership on or about May 18, 2009 should also be investigated by an independent judicial inquiry despite the then government denying the killings.

The allegations of 'white flag killings' which led to the deaths of Balasingham Nadesan, the head of the political wing of the LTTE, and S. Pulidevan, the LTTE's head of the peace secretariat allegedly took place after they were given assurances of safety "at a high level."

"The Commission is of the view that despite some conflicting evidence, the underlying matrix is such that these alleged illegal killings, together with other such killings of those who surrendered, must be the subject of an independent judge-led investigation."

"To that list for investigation, must be added the cases of all those who were hors de combat and allegedly perished while in the custody of the Sri Lanka Army."

Bus loads of civilians disappeared after being taken away by the military in the final days of the war, the commission found and recommended separate judicial investigations.

However, the commission cautioned that it would not be prudent to get the military to investigate itself and instead called for an independent judicial investigation led by neutral judges.

The Paranagama commission, set up in August 2013 in the face of international censure of Sri Lanka over its failure to address accountability, said a military court of inquiry could not be expected to impartially investigate the allegations.

The commission was initially asked to probe cases of people missing during the conflict and received complaints of 21,000 people missing after the end of the war in 2009.

-Call for foreign judges -

Judge Paranagama recommended that international judges should have a role to ensure the credibility of any investigation into war crimes.

"In the event that Sri Lanka were to set up a purely domestic tribunal it is the view of this commission that foreign observers should be encouraged," the report said.

Sri Lanka's new government too has resisted calls to have foreign judges investigating its war time past, but has shown willingness to draw on international forensic and legal support.

Members of Sri Lanka's Tamil minority say they do not trust a local inquiry to reach the truth about the conflict, in which more than 100,000 people died between 1972 and 2009 when the war ended with the crushing of Tamil rebels.

President Sirisena's administration has vowed to punish war criminals, in contrast to his hawkish predecessor Rajapakse. 

Sri Lanka became an international pariah after repeatedly resisting calls for a credible probe into the horrendous crimes, including the killing of at least 40,000 Tamil civilians in the final months of the war.

When Sirisena came to power in January he promised to restore human rights and the rule of law.

The new government has agreed to set up a South African-style truth commission, a war reparations office and a commission on missing people.

However, the panel appointed by Rajapakse recommended that the state should openly acknowledge that serious human rights violations had taken place and ensure a truth seeking mechanism with or without amnesty to perpetrators.

Sri Lankan Parliament and the UNHRC Resolution: Will Justice Prevail Over Politics?

Picture courtesy Foreign Policy – South Asia.

• by Jude Fernando 
• - on 10/20/2015 

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” – Arthur Schopenhauer

“If an offense come out of the truth, better is it that the offense comes than that the truth be concealed.” ― Thomas Hardy

On October 20, 2015, the Sri Lankan Parliament will debate the United Nations Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) resolution on alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and the systemic violation of human rights in Sri Lanka. This debate will make history if, and only if, it ends the legacy of political parties coopting debates concerned with ethnicity-related human rights issues to consolidate their political power. This legacy gives life to the same forces that continue to obstruct viable political solution to the ethnic issue.

Sri Lankan Parliament and the UNHRC Resolution Will Justice Prevail Over Politics by Thavam Ratna

Home Office mendacity

Oct 16, 2015

It has come to our attention that the UK Home Office has been using an extract from an interview our Campaign Director gave on 10th of March 2015 in order to justify the statement that the risk of persecution has reduced since the accession to power of President Maithripala Sirisena in January of this year. Here is such an example

We find this to be an appalling mischaracterisation of our Campaign Director’s words, particularly as the Sri Lanka Campaign wrote to the Home Office on 19th of March 2015detailing our strong belief that the risk of persecution under President Sirisena is just as strong as it has ever been.

Indeed, if anything, we are even more concerned now. This is because since March we have become aware of many more cases of torture and sexual violence being used during President Sirisena’s time in office. These cases include, but are not limited to, the new cases reported by Freedom from Torture and ITJPSL in their most recent reports.

The quotes used in Channel 4’s article were somewhat selective and do not in any way refer to the Sri Lanka Campaign’s views as to current levels of intimidation, political violence, or persecution in northern and eastern Sri Lanka, or towards those suspected of involvement with the LTTE. The comments related very specifically towards the increase in media freedoms in Sri Lanka in the south only, and two (at the time) recent positive developments: the release of Jeyakumary Balendaran (subsequently detained without charge for a further six day spell and still under a significant degree of surveillance) and the appointment of a civilian governor of the Northern Province.

In other, unused, sections of the interview, our Director did talk about the risk of persecution in northern and eastern Sri Lanka, or towards those suspected of involvement with the LTTE. We further expanded upon this in a blog post in April 2015 and a media guide published in September 2015.

There we reiterated our belief that the impact of President Sirisena has been the creation of two different political climates in Sri Lanka. In the south there has certainly been a reduction in state oppression and a liberalisation with respect to the media and public dissent. However it is clear that this freedom has not spread to the north and east, or to areas where the still unreformed security sector holds significant sway (such as the treatment of those suspected of involvement with the LTTE). In these areas it is clear that there has been virtually no change at all in government policy.

In all our public statements and in all our interactions with the Home Office we have made it clear that we regard the risk to returnees to be as great as it was under President Rajapaska. One particular comment on the general situation has been taken as having a specific meaning we never intended and indeed have persistently refuted.

If the Home Office wish to quote the Sri Lanka Campaign in regards to the risk to returnees in Sri Lanka we would encourage them to quote from the letter we wrote to them on that exact subject on the 19th of  March, in which we say that the risk persists.