Saturday, August 20, 2016

Political & Religious Leadership Crisis Of Sri Lankan Muslims

By Latheef Farook –August 18, 2016

Latheef Farook

Who represent the Muslim community in the government? The shocking answer is “NONE”.

One may ask “how could the Muslims complain as there are several Muslim ministers and deputy ministers in the government”. Yes there are many Muslim ministers, but they do not represent the community as most of them entered into deals and got into the government.

For example the presence of Sri Lanka Muslim Congresses, SLMC, in the government is deceptive as they contested in UNP tickets and entered the government.

It all started when the founder leader of SLMC late M. H. M. Ashraffexploited his position to make demands from the Sinhala political parties in return for support in forming governments. The Sinhala political leaderships, often blackmailed and let down by the SLMC leadership, exploited the leadership crisis after Mr Ashraff’s death by picking up one group to promote against the other.

Inevitably the never ending split bringing disrepute and disaster to the community besides creating communal disharmony. The SLMC’s miserable failure to take part in national issue isolated the community.

Muslims’ frustration with the SLMC was demonstrated during the Badulla Provincial Council election when, of the more than 50,000 Muslim votes, only around 5000 voted for joint SLMC. On the eve of the 8 January 2015 presidential elections, the SLMC and its splinter group led by Minister Rishard Bathiudeen joined President Maithripala Sirisena camp as they found that the entire Muslim community supported Mr Sirisena camp.

During the past few months the infighting within the SLMC has come to open. Judging from the endless infighting, disgusting allegations of corruption, fraud, despising sex scandals, greed for positions, power and perks and overall performance, the SLMC can no more claims to be Muslim as there is no Islam in their words and deeds.

As a result SLMC which came with the slogan of Islam and Unity around three decades ago has now ended up as Greek Tragedy for the community. More than half a dozen splinter groups speak for unity.

Today the Muslims are politically divided into regional groups placing the community in extremely vulnerable position as politicians are easily manipulated.

This confusion is exploited by manipulators, opportunists, social climbers and others to implement their own agendas under the guise of raising Muslim issues. They also started using All Ceylon Jamiathul Ulema,ACJU, to implement their designs.

ACJU willingly or unwillingly allows itself to be manipulated and used as a front for Muslim as well as non-Muslim politicians who seek to achieve their own ends through the ACJU.

For example a delegation of Muslims arranged at short notice, within 24 hours, and led by ACJU President Moulavi Rizvi, met President Maithripala Sirisena early this month to discuss community issues.

During the meeting the delegation has advocated many measures which have not been extensively discussed and decided upon by the Muslim community. For example the suggestion to do away with Muslim Schools is not a considered conclusion of the Muslim community but only the view of a few individuals.

Padeniya’s irresponsible , irrelevant and boorish statements pour scorn on medical profession !

–Group of doctors want him punished duly

(Lanka-e-News - 19.Aug.2016, 2.15 PM) The public announcements during the past two weeks made by a boor of a doctor - Dr.Padeniya ,who is a government servant are most obnoxious , and are in violation of the disciplinary code , laws and the solemn oath of Hippocrates he has taken of the noble medical profession, according to doctors of the government service . These doctors are therefore urging that he shall be immediately interdicted , and an investigation conducted into his outrageous unprofessional conduct with a view to cancel his medical license and strike his name off the roll of the medical profession which he is allegedly insulting and denigrating.

Dr.Padeniya who is the president of the trade union of the government medical officers (GMOA) , recently at a meeting of the medical practitioners held at the Health department openly said , Ranil Wickremesinghe is a mental patient thereby vilifying the Honorable Prime Minister duly elected by the people of the country , unlike Padeniya who had become a doctor out of the funds of the people, and who is now biting the very hands of the people that fed him .

Perhaps , frustrated Padeniya who has no idea about his own profession (having flagrantly violated the sacred oath of Hippocrates ) is so mentally deranged that he is ignorant of the common saying , ‘one thinks of others as one thinks of oneself’

It is very unfortunate this Anurudha Padeniya ,a teenyweeny minion of the medical profession who would not have become a Doctor but for the government funding during his medical studies , and who has lost his sense of proportions ,by calling the Prime minister (P.M.) of the government and the country as insane has proved beyond doubt he has no knowledge or mental capacity to abide by the disciplinary code which every government servant is expected to adhere to .

Padeniya is only a neuro physician and not a psychiatrist dealing with mental patients . Then how come he can make psychiatric valuations ? unless he is trying to prove wittingly or unwittingly he is a ‘ mental doctor’ deserving of mental treatment by calling others mad. Hence Padeniya by assuming that the honorable P.M. of the country is a mental patient has committed a most grave unpardonable blunder . That is while being a responsible doctor (‘mental doctor’ or otherwise) , by making such an irresponsible utterance in public he has defamed and vilified the honorable P.M. of the country .

In the circumstances , the derogatory public statement made by Padeniya (irrespective of his own mental derangement) , is absolutely wrong from every angle , the group of doctors who are up in arms against Padeniya’s boorish conduct and thoughtless utterances ,assered. Therefore they are vehemently insistent that an investigation be conducted into this and Padeniya be duly punished .

The second blundering statement made by Padeniya is in relation to the Indian ambulance service ( this was reported in the media)

Padeniya is so mentally deficient that he is opposing the Indian ambulance service in Sri Lanka. Subsequently , when the Indian ambulance service was launched , speaking at the Buddha Jayanthi center , he blabbered thus :

‘The Indian ambulance service has arrived. It is said , that service is for emergency cases. Yet inexperienced registered employees have been employed . We have to think twice whether we should accept patients that are transported by these ambulances with such unsuitable staff’

His statement that inexperienced staff are employed in the ambulance service is an absolute lie. We hope even though Padeniya is a ‘mental doctor’ he is intelligent and intelligible enough to be taught the fact that , in the country where there was a 30 years old war , ‘emergency patients’ were transported by three wheelers that were around , and not by ambulances in those exigent circumstances. Mind you those three wheelers are Indian products. In those vehicles there were no experienced staff. Yet doctors did not refuse to accept those patients.

By this stupid statement , Padeniya has not only displayed his ignoble character and abysmal ignorance of general knowledge but even his forgetfulness of the most sacred mandatory oath of Hippocrates he took (the oath every doctor has to take) when embarking on this noble medical profession that , he would utilize all his knowledge and resources at his command to treat every patient brought before him.

Article 2 and Article 5 of the oath of Hippocrates also make it incumbent on the medical practitioners to treat every patient irrespective of whether he/she is rich or poor . In the circumstances Padeniya who has no capacity to think sanely and sensibly before speaking , unlike the truly educated and the refined who ‘think before they leap’ , has leapt even worse than a frog to his doom going by his stupid utterances made in relation to the Honorable prime minister and the Indian ambulance service. Padeniya has therefore transgressed the scared oath most outrageously and shamelessly.

The group of medical doctors who know and respect their professional ethics and onerous duties are therefore insistent that deterrent and exemplary punishment be meted out to Padeniya by either interdicting him or suspending his medical license for a period or both for pouring scorn on their noble medical profession through his stupid announcements , as well as for showing scant respect to the sacred oath of Hippocrates , the father of medicine.

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by (2016-08-19 08:49:35)

Lessons from India’s partition

By Izeth Hussain-August 19, 2016

The approach of the seventieth anniversary of the Partition of India has inspired much writing in both India and Pakistan about its significance. William Dalrymple wrote in the New Yorker of June 29, 2015, that the Hindu-Muslim mutual genocide that accompanied the Partition was as unexpected as it was unprecedented. Between one to two million were killed, fifteen million were uprooted, and all imaginable horrors were committed by both sides. Dalrymple wrote that some British journalists who witnessed the Nazi death camps claimed that Partition’s brutalities were even worse.

The Nazi holocaust against the Jews, together with the two world wars of the last century, have been regarded by many analysts as signifying the failure of the Enlightenment project, which had behind it an ideology that gave primacy to rationality and individualism. George Orwell saw the Second World War as falsifying the vision of Walt Whitman – who merits position as the quintessential American poet – according to which the democratic vistas would open out endlessly: instead they led to the barbed wire of the concentration camp. However, it would be wrong for Asians to see those wars and the holocaust as showing up only the limitations of the West. The horrors of the Partition were even worse than those of the holocaust, which fact suggests that all those and similar horrors should be seen in terms of man’s inhumanity to man, the propensity to which recognizes no boundaries and applies to all humanity. Since the holocaust took place in highly civilized Germany and the Partition in highly civilized India, those horrors should also be taken as testifying to the fact that high civilizations can suddenly lapse into utter savagery.

The most important question that will be prompted by the approach of the seventieth anniversary of Partition is whether it was worth it. It is pertinent here to recall my own experience of the aftermath of Partition. I served in our High Commission in Karachi, the then capital of Pakistan, for two years beginning in 1957, which was just eleven years after Partition. It was impossible not to meet many who had been traumatized by the Partition, prompting the conclusion that there was indeed no alternative to Partition. But other facts prompted a different conclusion. During my first week in Karachi I was pointed out a gentleman in a felt hat as the brother of the Nawab of Pataudi: the families of the two brothers had settled down quite happily in India and in Pakistan. Mansur Ali Khan, an Indian batting great like his father the Nawab, married Sharmila Tagore the grand-daughter of the poet. The Pakistan Foreign Secretary was Baig, a former member of the ICS like his brother who – if I remember rightly – was Chief of Protocol in the Delhi Foreign Office. The Pakistan Deputy Chief of Protocol was Tyabji, another branch of whose family were very distinguished members of the legal profession in India. Such facts were legion, prompting the question whether the Partition was really necessary. Going beyond my immediate field of experience in Karachi, I will mention just one fact: Nehru was a Kashmiri Brahmin the Persianised culture of whose ancestors made them more akin to the world of Islam than to that of the Hindus, which might perhaps partly explain Nehru’s universalism as distinct from the Hindu particularism of Gandhi – one of the facts that drove Jinnah to think of Pakistan.

The question that has to be decided is whether the Partition was a contingent development, the consequence of the fortuitous coming together of various circumstances, or whether it was the inexorable working out of the incompatibility or antagonism between Hinduism and Islam and other historical factors. The evidence strongly suggests that it was a contingent development, something that could have been avoided. First of all, we must explode the myth of an essential antagonism between Hinduism and Islam: there was no such antagonism in traditional India. The Muslim conquest of India began with the capture of Lahore in 1021 by Persianised Turks from central Afghanistan. By 1323 the Muslims had established a sultanate extending as far south as Madurai.

According to Dalrymple the invaders were not identified in medieval Sanskrit inscriptions by religion as "Muslims"; they were identified by linguistic and ethnic affiliation as Turushka (Turks). He acknowledges that there was carnage and destruction of Hindu and Buddhist sites – which still enrages our local Islamophobes – but he writes that "India soon embraced and transformed the new arrivals", which led to the birth of a hybrid civilization. Islam spread in India not through conquest but through the preaching of Sufi mystics who were stunningly ecumenical in their outlook, even to the extent of regarding Hindu scriptures as divinely inspired – a tradition that continued until the last Mogul Emperor. Commonsense should tell the Islamophobes that the Muslim invaders from Central Asia quite simply did not have the manpower to impose Islam by coercion over millions of Hindus in Punjab and Bengal. I had better make a clarification at this point that Dalrymple is not a Muslim engaging in Islamic apologetics – he is a cousin of Virginia Woolf and a reputed Indophile historian who figured in the Galle Literary Festival some time ago.

An almost millennium long history of Hindu-Muslim co-existence should have made the idea of Partition outrageous and unthinkable. So Dalrymple asks how did India’s deeply intermixed and profoundly syncretic culture unravel so quickly, the polarization taking place in a mere couple of decades. The horrors that accompanied the Partition have to be explained in terms of man’s inhumanity to man while the polarization can be explained only in terms of the fortuitous and the contingent, not in terms of the inexorable working out of historic forces. It is a surprising fact surely that the Muslim League’s commitment to establishing a separate state came in its Lahore Resolution as late as 1940, just seven years before Partition. Actually even that Resolution was not unambiguously in favor of the establishment of Pakistan.

Many Asians will be disposed to wonder whether Britain had changed its imperialist policy of divide and rule to one of divide and depart: the parting devil was out to kick the rice-pot. It is known that Churchill, notorious for his hatred towards Hindus, had assured Jinnah that he would do everything possible towards the establishment of Pakistan. But he was not in power at that time. It is possible that there were powerful personages in the British Establishment who wanted the dismemberment of India, but they could not have taken decisive action. What was decisive was the bitter hatred that had come to prevail between Jinnah on the one hand and Nehru and Vallabai Patel on the other. Gandhi proposed that Jinnah be made the first Prime Minister of India, but Nehru and Patel would not agree. In the alternative, it is likely that Jinnah would have died of cancer while being Prime Minister and a united India would have survived. Anyway it seems very reasonable to conclude that Partition was the consequence of the contingent and the fortuitous, not of inexorable processes.

What lessons can we draw from the Partition? We can engage in a selective reading of history emphasizing the differences between the Sinhalese and the Tamils or their commonality, making Sri Lanka a hell on earth or a good place to live in. What interests me most is the play of the contingent and the fortuitous after 1977. By 1971 the imbalances that had been irksome to the Sinhalese had all been corrected, but new imbalances were created which in their turn required correction. In the ensuing years the Sinhalese side has shown a willingness to take corrective action and it is a reasonable surmise that the ethnic problem would have been solved and a reasonable degree of ethnic harmony established. Instead President JR, a man of blood, exercised virtually absolute power from 1977, and under him there was State terrorism from 1977 to 1983, leading to a quarter century of war. I don’t see that as the inexorable working out of historic forces in Sri Lanka.

izethhussain@gmail.com

350,000 sit Grade 5 Exam tomorrow

By Umesh Moramudali-2016-08-20

More than 350,000 students will sit the Grade Five Scholarship Examinations to be held at 2,959 examination centres around the country tomorrow, the Department of Examinations said. According to the Commissioner General of Examination, W.M.N.M. Pushpakumara, 350,701 students will sit the examination. Of them, 421 students are described as children with 'special needs.'

Children with special needs are defined as those who may have mild learning disabilities or profound cognitive impairment; food allergies or terminal illnesses; developmental delays that catch up quickly or remain entrenched; occasional panic attacks or serious psychiatric problems. The Examinations Department had assigned approximately 28,000 staff members to monitor exams. The department said 'special teams' would be deployed at examination centres across the country throughout the day to ensure that examinations are not hindered in any way.

The Director General of Examinations noted that the Police are authorized to arrest any individual who disturbs the examination and the public are requested to lodge complaints via hotline 1911.

Post-Pāda Yātrā – Punditry & Polemics

By Sarath De Alwis –August 16, 2016

Sarath de Alwis

To say of what is, that it is, or of what is not, that it is not, is true. ~ Aristotle.

Confusing friend and foe with right and wrong is an occupational hazard of partisan commentators. Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka is no exception to the rule. Despite the voluntary stepping on a discursive banana skin, his latest essay ‘Politics Post-Pāda Yātrā: From Here To 2020’, delivers some startlingly uncomfortable home truths to those in power.

As the ideologue of the joint opposition, he has decided to mentor his charges in the role of a Clausewitz and drawn a strategy map for them. It was von Clausewitz who said “Engagements mean fighting. The object of fighting is the destruction or defeat of the enemy.” It was also Clausewitz who warned that theories become infinitely more difficult as soon as ‘they touch the realm of moral values.” Dr. Jayatilleka earns the admiration of this writer for his unvarnished contempt for moral integrity in political combat. He is well informed of the enormity of the crisis that confronts the nation and the government.

We are saddled with an economy sinking under a mountain of debt, a parliament where no meaningful debate is possible and an unprincipled government. The leading English weekend Broadsheet in a recent editorial summed up the crisis of governance by the Sirisena –Wickremesinghe consociation with agonizing clarity. “Politicians, past and present, are playing with fire using the debt card to attack each other as the country slides down the slippery slope of a debt trap. Then, the Government places the future of the country in the hands of a secretive few, some with vested interests, accusing others of destabilising the country’s economy when they are doing just that by themselves.”

The editor of the most widely read English Sunday News Paper was echoing widely held and broadly expressed public disgust.

So, Dr. Dayan Jayatillake does not need to exert himself. With detached calm, he explores the mine field that the government has to traverse in the coming months. He is acutely aware of the malaise, the pain and the cure.

His suggestion is what any general would make on discovery of an open flank on the opposite side. But, he wants a scorched earth policy. He wants the opposition to combine economic disruption and ethnic discord as their primary targets. He makes it abundantly clear to all that the sole purpose of the Pāda Yātrā was to restore Rajapaksa rule and or to thwart investigations into their barefaced frauds and outright embezzlements.

He offers options. “.. The more you resort to economic cut backs the less you can concede on either accountability or ethnic autonomy, because you are dealing with growing numbers of disaffected people from the majority community.” Then he twists the blade. “Indeed the more you push economic shock therapy together with ethnic devolution, the more you risk a backlash. The more you combine economic shock therapy, ethnic devolution and wartime accountability into a cocktail and shake it, the more likely it is to become incendiary.”

Dr. Dayan Jayatillake is undoubtedly a bright political scientist. He is adequately versed in Foucault’s theory of subtle and stealthy power to know the difference between the stratocracy that ended on 8th January 2015 and the faulty democracy that replaced it.

(Lanka-e-News -20.Aug.2016, 7.30PM) The court yesterday(19) issued edicts against the two cuties who are supposed to be Directors of Namal Rajapakse’s companies in connection with the Rs. 45 million money laundering crime committed by Namal . These two suspects are evading arrest despite warrants being issued on them .

Fort magistrate Nishantha Peiris today issued an Interpol warrant to arrest Batapola Arachilage Oranella Iresha Silva who has fled to Dubai. She is a member of the Director boards of the two Companies , NR consultants and Gowers Corporation belonging to Namal Rajapakse.

In addition , Sujani Bogallagama who is also a Director of both companies ,NR consultants and Gowers Corporation who duped the court by getting herself admitted to the Colombo National hospital in order to evade arrest was also ordered by court to be subjected to a medical examination to ascertain whether she is truly sick. The judicial medical officer of the National hospital was directed to furnish his report to court after examination on the 22 nd . Interestingly and incidentally Sujani Bogallagama is a relative of former foreign minister Rohitha Bogallagama .

We hereby express our effusive thanks to all those who furnished a photograph of Oranella Iresha Silva (on whom an Interpol warrant has been issued) to us within half an hour in response to our request.

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by (2016-08-20 15:14:43)

Blood Bank pushed to blood line crisis

August 19, 2016, 7:58 pm

"What I want is Sinha-Le" the patient insisted.

He was being prepared for surgery and having tested his blood had been told it would be helpful to arrange for blood of the not so readily available A+ Group, and that was his problem.

"What I have is Sinha-Le – there is nothing English or foreign with my blood, it is the real Sinha-Le" he told the nursing sister who told him of what may be needed.

The sister thought it was a simple matter. "Alright, don’t worry. Do you have members if yor family or friends who have the same A-group blood. The Blood Bank will give you what is needed, but it is good to give it more stocks," she said.

But the patient was adamant. I am not bothered whether they are from my family or my friends –I will only take Sinha-Le, and that must be understood. If you don’t understand it I will write it down. He sat up on his bed, took his note book, wrote down - සිංහලේ, and gave it to the sister. "This is the only blood I will take", he said very firmly.

The surgery was due the next day, so the sister informed the House Officer of the problem. He soon came to the patient and told him he need not worry, because the Type A + blood, was not an anti-Sinhala blood type, and that it did not belong to any other race or community.

But such explanation was of no use. The patient could not be persuaded. What he wanted was "Sinhala-Le" and nothing else. If not he would leave the hospital on his own and not have the surgery. The doctor knew that would be bad for the man, as his condition required quick surgery taking a long time, needing plenty of blood.

This became a major problem for the National Hospital, Colombo, and the major hospital in the island. One is not certain whether the problem faced by the NHC had anything to do with the reported political clash earlier this week between rivals on what seemed to be a matter of blood – but was not bloody as it could well have been.

It was the hugely abusive verbal clash between those who were carrying out a demonstration for what they called "Ekama Le" – Blood with no Difference- and a group from what is being as the "Sinha Le" movement, emphasizing this as the dominant blood of the Sri Lankan nation – or shall we say the Sinhala nation.

It certainly did not matter to them that "Sinha-Le" they were calling for with stickers on the rear windows of cars and the back of three-wheelers, seemed to be the blood of a lion, seeing the sword bearing lion symbol that accompanies the slogan. The group calling for "Ekama-Le" or Blood with no Difference, also seemed to be wholly ignorant of the several types of blood groups in humans. Neither group seemed to know of the Rhesus factor in our blood, which comes from the primates, and not any other animal.

Meanwhile, the patient was giving his own version of things to other patients in the ward. He said this was major conspiracy, and anti-national conspiracy. We are Sinha or Lion blooded people, this comes down through our history. They are trying to make us forget King Vijaya, his father Sinhabahu, and the lion that was his father. We have come from that great line of lion blood – that is the Sinha-Le that I have, and all good Sinhala people have. That is what I am asking for, he explained to the somewhat surprised other patients, who were also to receive blood from the Blood Bank for their surgeries. I tell you this is a western conspiracy to change our blood using their alphabet.

One patients who had heard him, quietly asked, but what do we do if the Blood Bank does not have this blood? Do you think our good Sinhala doctors do not know anything about this, and are also part of this anti Lion blood conspiracy?

Another patient said – my blood group is B, and I know that most of the others here are of the "O" group. Are you saying we are not Sinhala people, and have no links to the history coming down from Vijaya?

The Sinha-Le patient was not giving up easily. "I don’t know whether the doctors are in any conspiracy. This may be much beyond them. But it is time they thought of acting on this matter, as they are making protests about other issues that many say do not involve them".

One patents had a novel idea. He was more concerned with the Sinha-le’s health. "Look, you go ahead with your surgery. We will make a demand from the government to change the names of blood groups into Sinhala".

Sinha-Le responded: "That is an interesting idea, but we can’t just name them like in our Sinhala alphabet. The letter for the Sinha or Lion sound comes very far down the alphabet, and we may never have a Sinha-Le named as such.

They had a confab and arrived at a compromise. To ask the Blood Bank to name Blood Group "A" as Sinha-Le. Of course A + would then be a stronger lion’s blood. The patient who raised the issue seemed to be proud at having a stronger lion’s blood in his veins as suggested.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health to which this matter had been reported had decided to summon an urgent meeting of medical experts, especially with regard to blood types, to work out a new strategy for the Blood Bank. We may have to await a presidential decision on that, at least before the Joint Opposition calls for a bloody dance -walk on the matter.

Sri Lanka: Constitutional reforms pointless, if fundamental rights does not apply to all citizens equally!

The following statement issued by the Women Action Network, Civil Society Collective in Sri Lanka

( August 21, 2016, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) It is a hopeful time for Sri Lanka as a country that is seeking justice, fairness and progress for all. It is encouraging to note that the constitutional reforms process has been broadly consultative and has engaged the public from the grassroots all the way to national level. It has given Sri Lankans the opportunity to articulate their perspectives publicly and engage in a process that has multi-generational impacts for many years to come.

Fundamental rights is central to the constitution and if the new Constitution cannot guarantee equality and equal protection under the law for all citizens then all efforts towards constitutional reform would be futile. The reforms process must ensure a constitution that is supreme under normal circumstances. Thus the concern emerges regarding Article 16 of the 1978 Constitution, which makes all written and unwritten laws in existence before the promulgation of the constitution valid and operative despite inconsistencies with fundamental rights.

As the Women Action Network – a collection of activists and human rights organizations across the island, we wish to draw attention to the significant impact Article 16 has on Muslim women in relation to the Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act (MMDA) of 1951.

Article 16, by upholding the MMDA sans reforms, renders Muslim women second-class citizens by not guaranteeing them equal protection under the law. Muslim women, including victims of child marriage, have articulated very strongly to the Public Representations Committee on Constitutional Reform that the constitution must guarantee that their human and citizenship rights are not violated in the name of ‘cultural and religious rights’ and that every woman and girl in this country should enjoy equality and basic human rights regardless of religion or ethnicity. This includes either the removal of Article 16 in the new constitution, or amendments that allow Constitutional supremacy above discriminatory customary laws.

For decades, Muslim women and groups working closely with victims have been advocating for reform to the MMDA and the Quazi court system. Women’s groups documented numerous cases of injustices faced by Muslim women under the MMDA enabled by discriminatory provisions within the Act such as lack of minimum age of marriage and agency to consent to marriage, unequal process of divorce for men and women, polygamy without conditions, arbitrary process of compensation, to name a few. Multiple cases of child marriage have been documented all over the island in Muslim communities, which is enabled by the MMDA and Article 16. In addition to case data, information from marriage registration, maternal units in hospitals and research on child marriage shows both child marriage and child pregnancies are prevalent, with the lack of legal protective mechanisms as a key contributing factor. Data collected of registered Muslim marriages from four DS divisions in two Eastern districts indicates over 143 cases of underage marriage in 2014 and over 118 cases for the first few months of 2015 alone.

Muslim women around the country have also articulated in multiple forums that they are discriminated against by the sub-par Quazi court system, which is significantly different from the civil court system and doesn’t allow for affected persons to have legal representation. Women are often mistreated by incompetent Quazis and the jurors of the courts; not given equal treatment as their husbands; are unable to express their side without fear of being verbally abused, threatened and humiliated in courts throughout their case processes. It is notable that the Quazi court system, while being a government sanctioned system funded by tax payer money, prohibits women from holding any position of authority, either as marriage registrars, Quazis, jurors, or Board of Quazi members and thus is marked by systemic gender discrimination (MMDA Section 8,12,14,15).

What good is a ‘special’ family law if it violates rights of the women of a said community rather than protect, promote and guarantee rights? For the answer, one must merely ask the number of 15 – 18 years old Muslim girls who are forced to go to Quazi courts after being forced/coerced into marriage, or who are abandoned due to polygamy around the country.

The opposition to the amendment or removal of Article 16 has come primarily from conservatives who want to maintain the status quo by claiming to have the best interest of the Muslim community at heart. The arguments put forward by said groups include that the MMDA is based on Shariah and cannot be reformed; however the Sri Lankan MMDA is a combination of multiple imports of versions of Shariah law and local customs, and also includes anti-Shariah provisions such as the recognition of kaikuli (dowry) which is forbidden in Islam. Others claim that the Muslim community is under threat from anti-pluralist elements and as such the MMDA must be protected; however protection in the constitution for minorities does not mean that discriminatory family laws are allowed to supersede the constitution merely to guarantee cultural/religious rights at the expense of equal right of women.

The new rights-based constitution must guarantee that Muslim women have equal legal status and protection under the law. Making the constitution truly supreme by removing or amending Article 16, will provide space for the Muslim community to reform the MMDA to be equitable and address contemporary issues of the community. There are different approaches to addressing Article 16, but leaving it unchanged is not an option. If Sri Lanka is to become a progressive nation that treats all its citizens equally then progressive realization of women’s rights is of paramount importance at this time. No citizen whatever his or her religious or ethnic status should be left behind.

*WAN is a collective of 8 women’s organisations that are working in the north and east.

No provision to probe into abused children at Hantana

Aug 20, 2016

It is reported by the authorities of the ministry of education or the national children protection authority have no legal authority and powers to investigate into the cases of the abused children at the Hantana leadership academy.

But the authorities of the ministry of education and national child protection authority have added that it has become a severe constraint to take action against such activities in the Hantana leadership academy by conducting investigations as the law does not provide provisions.

When the media secretary of the Child Protection Authority Ediriweera Gunasekera was contacted he had said that he has no provisions under the existing laws to make investigations. Hence for the authorities of the Child Protection Authority have no access legally to commence any investigations into the child abuse incidents reported.

However the media secretary of the Child Protection Authority had added that after the police make investigations a responsibility lies with the related authority to conduct further investigations on the Kandy Hantana Child leadership academy. .
Adding further the media secretary of the child protection authority had added that they have only powers to investigate into complaints made on the abuses made for children at Children’s homes. In regard to other children abuses only the police have to conduct such investigations. After which only the Child Protection Authority would be taking action.

These particulars the media secretary of the Child Protection Authority had disclosed to the Sath Handa media.

When the same question had been posed to the media secretary of the Education ministry Kalpa Guneratne, he had wanted that question to be asked more details from a more responsible person attached to the ministry of education like the secretary to the ministry of education.

When the secretary of the education ministry HM Bandusena was contacted over the telephone on this matter he had said that for such an inquiry he is not prepared to answer over the telephone but to meet him and discuss such a matter. When he was pressed for an answer he had said that for such an intervention is usually not acquainted with the ministry of education.

Adding further he had said that other than the matters related to government and private schools the matters pertaining to problems of other institutions are usually not investigated by the ministry of education as they are not within their provisions.

It is also reported that on the abuse of children at the Hantane leadership academy no action has been initiated by the authorities of the ministry of education as in regard to matters related to tuition classes, private academies, hostels etc provisions have not been vested with them to investigate.

Kalpa Guneratne had added that it should be a duty of the parents of the students in this academy to focus attention on the children in order to prevent any abuse that could happen to their children and reiterated that the authorities of the ministry of education are helpless in this matter.

Diplomatic divisions dismayed over failure to appoint Latheef as STF commandant and disrespect shown to Police commission

(Lanka-e-News - 18.Aug.2016, 7.30 AM) The failure to appoint senior DIG M.R.Latheef as the commandant of the police STF despite the recommendation made by the Independent Police commission has drawn the serious attention of the foreign Diplomatic circles.

Based on inquiries made by diplomatic divisions , the IGP has been unable to carry out the recommendation of the Police Commission owing to pressures brought to bear by the presidential secretariat.

This villainy and obstruction which can militate against the independent Commissions appointed to augment and strengthen Democracy in the country have caused disappointment and disillusionment among the Diplomatic divisions. If the president is not involved in these pressures exerted by the presidential secretariat , surely there was enough time for the president to remedy the situation . But apparently no such action has been taken by the president so far. The Diplomatic divisions are therefore dismayed and disappointed over it.

Meanwhile , according to reports reaching Lanka e news, a proposal has been made by a powerful quarter of the government to give him an appointment in the diplomatic service , instead of granting him the STF commandant post. Latheef however has bitterly opposed that move.

He had explained that the diplomatic assignment is not what he requested , and as the Constitutional council has recommended him to the post of STF commandant after considering the pros and cons , he shall be appointed to that post , rather than a diplomatic assignment.

The Constitutional Council has sharply focused on the failure to implement the recommendation made by the Independent Police Commission because the latter was established by the Constitutional council.

SC verdict - It is the Commission that can and not the IGP

Already the Supreme court (SC) has given a verdict on the implementation of the recommendations of the Police Commission vis a vis the powers of the IGP.

The verdict given by the chief justice SriPavan and justice Anil Gunaratne states ,it is the National Police commission that can effect transfers to the officers above the grade of ASPs , and not the IGP , and if the IGP is acting heedless of this basic tenet such action is against the laws and invalid.

This verdict was delivered by the court based on a fundamental rights (FR) petition filed by SSP Palitha Siriwardena against a statement made by IGP Poojitha Jayasundara soon after his appointment as IGP during a meeting held at Kilinochchi district secretariat. The statement made by the IGP was Siriwardena will have to be transferred out of Kilinochchi.

Siriwardena filed an FR petition in the SC that the statement made by the IGP was not consonant with the laws and is a violation of his fundamental rights.

Therefore based on the verdict delivered by the SC , the appointment of Latheef made by the Police Commission cannot be changed even by the president. If Latheef’s appointment is not given effect to by the IGP by kowtowing to the Executive , the CID and the FCID which are today functioning independently , will no doubt become Institutions filled with henchmen and lickspittles appointed to suit and serve the needs of the Executive with the inevitable result – both Institutions becoming servile services of the executive with sycophants and henchmen doing only the latter’s sordid biddings as in the past.

The masses did not sweat and toil via the rainbow revolution to make a success of the establishment of Independent Commissions, in order to subordinate or to subjugate the Commissions to the Executive. In the circumstances the Civil organizations must spearhead the campaign against these barbaric and uncouth attempts and actions.

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by (2016-08-19 08:45:31)

China opens world’s greatest, glass bridge

China opens world’s greatest, Israeli-made, glass bridgeDesigned by architect Haim Dotan, the transparent walkway is 1,410 feet long and 1,000 feet high

( August 21, 2016, Beijing, Sri Lanka Guardian) China will open the world’s highest and longest glass-bottomed bridge this weekend, designed by Israeli architect Haim Dotan.

The bridge is 6 meters (20 feet) wide, 430 meters long (about 1,410 feet) and hangs 300 meters (almost 1,000 feet) high above a ravine in southern China’s Hunan province. Authorities plan to hold fashion shows on the stunning crossing, and have built a platform for bungee jumpers.

Located in Zhangjiajie National Park, which is said to have inspired James Cameron’s film Avatar, it was completed in December at a cost of $3.4 million.

Most remarkably of all, it is fitted with 99 huge three-layer glass panes through which visitors can glimpse the terrifying drop below.

Though many will no doubt be concerned for their safety on the walkway, Chinese officials have made repeated assurances that the bridge is entirely safe. To prove the point, in June they staged an event in which a glass pane was repeatedly bashed with sledgehammers, then driven over with a car full of passengers.

The glass did indeed hold.

Israeli architect Haim Dotan (YouTube screenshot/Channel 1)

Dotan told Wired he had initially balked at the notion of constructing a bridge over the gorge.

“‘Why do you want a bridge? It’s too beautiful,’” he recalls telling developers. Finally, “I told him, ‘We can build a bridge but under one condition: I want the bridge to disappear.’”

Israel extends Palestinian journalist’s detention without trial, NGO says

Another 19 Palestinian journalists and students of journalism are in Israeli prisons, one of them for more than 20 years

Palestinian journalists hold placards and banners during demonstration on 24 April outside Red Cross offices in West Bank city of Ramallah, in support of their colleague, Omar Nazzal, who was detained previous day by Israeli forces (AFP)

Saturday 20 August 2016

Israeli authorities have extended by three months the detention without trial of a Palestinian journalist who had been due for release on Monday, a Palestinian NGO said on Saturday

The Ramallah-based Palestinian Prisoners Club said it had been informed by Omar Nazzal's lawyers that the senior journalists' union official would not now be released at the end of his current term, on 22 August.

"Israel is intensifying its policy of administrative detention and increasing the extensions of administrative detention," prisoners club spokeswoman Amani Sarahneh told AFP. "In particular it made this choice in the case of Omar."

Of more than 6,295 Palestinians currently in Israeli jails, 692 Palestinians - including two women and 13 minors - are being held under administrative detention, according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.

The Palestinian journalists' union says that another 19 Palestinian journalists and students of journalism are in Israeli prisons, one of them for more than 20 years.

Israel says administrative detention is intended to allow authorities to hold suspects while continuing to gather evidence, with the aim of preventing further attacks in the meantime, according to the Times of Israel. The system has been criticized by Palestinians, human rights groups and members of the international community.

Nazzal’s wife Marlene Rabadi posted on Facebook: "We were informed today that Omar's administrative detention has been extended by three months."

Israeli officials could not immediately be reached for comment on Saturday, the Jewish sabbath.

Nazzal was arrested on 23 April at the border between the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Jordan, from where he had been due to fly to a European Federation of Journalists gathering in Bosnia.

A military court ordered at the time that he be placed for four months in administrative detention. Israel accuses him of "participation in a terrorist organisation".

Its Shin Bet security service said in April that Nazzal, 54, served in a top position at Palestine al-Youm television in Ramallah, which Israel closed on accusations of incitement to violence.

Nazzal had left the broadcaster several months before his arrest, which Palestinians say is an Israeli attack on the freedom of the Palestinian press.

Israel says Nazzal was detained for "his involvement in terror group activities", not "because of his activity as a journalist".

He has been on hunger strike since 4 August in protest against his detention, and international organisations have called for his release.

The United Nations on Saturday expressed deep concern about "the deteriorating health" of another administrative detainee, Bilal Kayed, who has been on hunger strike for 67 days.

It added that the number of administrative detainees is currently at an eight-year high.

"I reiterate the United Nations long-standing position that all administrative detainees - Palestinian or Israeli - should be charged or released without delay," Robert Piper, UN Coordinator for Humanitarian Aid and Development Activities in the occupied Palestinian territories, said in a statement.