Report: Yahoo worked with US to spy on user email

Media report that Yahoo scanned millions of emails at the behest of US intelligence. The spying occurred in 2015, according to the news agency Reuters.

( October 6, 2016, Boston, Sri Lanka Guardian) In 2015, Yahoo built a program to search customers’ emails for phrases, numbers and characters provided by intelligence officials, according to Reuters. Three former Yahoo employees and another unidentified person told the news agency that the spying could involve hundreds of millions of email accounts.

Yahoo did not deny Tuesday’s report. The company “complies with the laws of the United States,” according to a statement.

The sources said some employees protested the fact that CEO Marissa Mayer and general counsel Ron Bell did not involve the company’s security team in the process. Instead, Reuters reported, Yahoo asked email engineers to write a program to siphon off messages containing the character string the spies sought and store them for remote retrieval.

Yahoo’s security team discovered the program in May 2015. Employees initially thought hackers broke in, Reuters reported.

The spying created a rift between CEO Mayer and head of security Alex Stamos, who said hackers could have exploited the emails. Stamos left for Facebook in June 2015.

“It is deeply disappointing that Yahoo declined to challenge this sweeping surveillance order, because customers are counting on technology companies to stand up to novel spying demands in court,” said Patrick Toomey, of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Nothing is private

The FBI did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The NSA, too, declined to respond to the report. Reuters could not determine what data Yahoo might have handed over, if any, and whether intelligence officials had approached other email providers with this kind of request.

Under the 2008 amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), intelligence agencies can ask US telephone and internet companies to provide customer data to aid espionage efforts for a variety of reasons, including preventing terrorist attacks. US telephone and internet companies have previously handed over bulk customer data to intelligence agencies.

NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s 2013 disclosure of US surveillance led authorities to scale back some of the programs, in part to protect privacy rights. However, as tech companies become better at encrypting data, they will likely face more such requests. In an email, former NSA General Counsel Stewart Baker told Reuters that email providers “have the power to encrypt it all, and with that comes added responsibility to do some of the work that had been done by the intelligence agencies.”

Hard Brexit? Soft Brexit? No, it’s the Right Brexit stupid!

Hard Brexit? Soft Brexit? No, it’s the Right Brexit stupid!

IThursday 06 Oct 2016

t can’t have been an easy task for the new Chancellor to address an audience in New York consisting of precisely the very “rootless international elite” that his boss Theresa May was just the day before castigating.

The man charged with interviewing Mr Hammond told him the audience of bankers and businessmen had been shocked at the language coming out of the Conservative Party Conference over the past few days. All of which has left them – and almost everyone else– concluding that Britain is headed for a “hard Brexit” – an end to freedom of movement and with it, necessarily, an ousting from the single market. That was the message loud and clear. Yet Mr Hammond appeared to want to soften the tone today. “We don’t recognise this distinction between hard Brexit and soft Brexit,” he told the audience. Instead he came up with a new piece of jargon of his own. “We want the Right Brexit,” he said.

The Right Brexit, according to Mr Hammond, means there will be negotiation and that compromise WILL be reached on both sides, including on freedom of movement.  Yes there’s lots of tough talk now, he said, but over time, some form of agreement was on the cards.

“I’ve never been involved in a negotiation where the end position after two years of negotiating is exactly the same as the starting position, so this is a negotiation,” he said. “We understand the opening position of the European Union.  The European Union understands the opening position of the UK.  Let’s now get engaged in a sensible discussion.”

That’s a very different tone to the Prime Minister, though, who made clear Brexit must mean no freedom of movement. Period. Very little room for negotiation there.

Of course there was an element of the Chancellor clearly trying to tell his audience what they wanted to hear and one source told me his message wasn’t different to the Prime Minister. Yet, unlike her, he was at pains to stress that “It will be one of the UK government’s objectives to ensure that the parts of the financial services sector that are Europe facing are able to continue doing business in Europe.”

But whether or not that is achievable is another issue altogether. Clearly the markets aren’t buying it. Sterling touched another new low today as investors continue to believe that a Hard Brexit is now inevitable and that it will bring pain for the British economy or British businesses.

But it’s not just the international elite that Mr Hammond will have to sell his message to.

There are people in the Cabinet alongside the Chancellor who will not like the sound of “sensible discussions” at all. In fact, they rather like the idea of Hard Brexit meaning just that. Hard Brexit.

Ghana to remove Gandhi statue because of his "alleged racism"

A school boy dressed as Mahatma Gandhi takes part in a march to mark the 143rd birth anniversary of Gandhi in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad October 2, 2012. REUTERS/Amit Dave/Files

Fri Oct 7, 2016

Ghana will move a statue of Mahatma Gandhi from its main university because of his "alleged past racist comments", the foreign ministry said, while paying tribute to Gandhi's role as a civil rights leader.

A group of lecturers and students began campaigning for the Indian nationalist leader's statue to be removed shortly after it was installed at the university in June as a symbol of friendship between Ghana and India. They argue that Gandhi made comments that were racist about Africans and that statues on the Accra campus should be of African heroes.

In a statement late on Thursday, the ministry said it was concerned by the acrimony the campaign had generated.

"The government would therefore want to relocate the statue from the University of Ghana to ensure its safety and to avoid the controversy ... being a distraction (from) our strong ties of friendship," it said.

Noting that Gandhi had inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world, the statement urged Ghanaians to "look beyond the comments attributed to ... Gandhi and acknowledge his role as one of the most outstanding personalities of the last century."

A senior Indian diplomat said the ministry's "very good statement" had sought to set the life and work of the advocate of peaceful resistance in a broader context and that the statue would be moved from the university to a safer place.

Amar Sinha also told reporters in New Delhi the two governments had discussed the debate over Gandhi that had flared in Ghana and South Africa.

He said comments interpreted by some as racist had been made relatively early in the life of the Indian protest leader.

India's struggle against British colonialism under Gandhi was an inspiration to a generation of African independence leaders, including Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah, who in 1957 managed to persuade British authorities to grant Ghana independence -- one of the first African nations to get it.

Gandhi lived in South Africa at the turn of the 20th century, where he campaigned for rights for the descendents of Indian indentured labourers brought there to work sugar plantations in its northeast Natal province, now KwaZulu-Natal.

Although his philosophy of peaceful protest would later inspire the African National Congress in its resistance to white Apartheid rule, historians say Gandhi himself was no believer in equality between races, at least not earlier in his career.

In his book, Gandhi: the True Man Behind Modern India, broadcaster Jad Adams quotes him as referring to black people as "kaffirs", a deeply offensive term, in a speech in 1896:

"Ours is one continual struggle against a degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the Europeans, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw kaffir," he quotes him as saying.

"And whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy his wife with and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness."

He later seems to have changed his views, saying stereotypes of Africans as "barbarians" are wrong, the author writes.

(Reporting by Tim Cocks; Additional reporting by Douglas Busvine in New Delhi; Editing by Catherine Evans)

What Good Is a Nobel Peace Prize in Colombia?

BY SIOBHÁN O'GRADY-OCTOBER 7, 2016

Five days ago, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos’s legacy was tarnished on the international stage when Colombian voters shockingly voted against the peace deal he helped to negotiate that would have ended the country’s 52-year-old conflict with the Marxist FARC rebel group.

But on Friday, in a signal that despite the failed referendum, his efforts still have the backing of the international community, Santos woke to news that he had won the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the talks.

Colombia watchers hope that the award will inspire Colombians — and especially those who voted against the deal — to rise up united to find a new solution to end the war. The Nobel Committee even echoed that sentiment in their statement accompanying news of Santos’s award.

“The committee hopes that the peace prize will give him strength to succeed in this demanding task,” committee chairwoman Kaci Kullmann Five said on Friday. “Further, it is the committee’s hope that in the years to come, the Colombian people will reap the fruits of the reconciliation process.”

But there is one key person who the Nobel Prize likely won’t convince: ÁlvaroUribe, Santos’s political opponent and presidential predecessor who led the “no” campaign against the deal.

“I congratulate Prez Santos’s Nobel [win],” he tweeted on Friday. “I hope that it leads him to change accords that are harmful for democracy.”

Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, told Foreign Policy in a phone call on Friday that discontent about the award is only to be expected in Uribe’s camp, which saw the agreement as too gracious toward the FARC, considering the militants had committed atrocities and terrorized the Colombian population during its decades-long revolt against the central government. For his part, Santos was willing to make concessions with the FARC that Uribe was not, a move that ultimately appears to have lost him the referendum.

Much like another seemingly premature Nobel Peace Prize — that given to President Barack Obama in 2009 — the award could breed some ill will at home. “There are other Colombians that will resent this award going to Santos because they believe that he not only hasn’t accomplished anything, but that he’s let the FARC off too easily with the peace agreement,” Shifter said.

Those who back Uribe could even see it as a personal affront against the former president. “Uribe has a lot of envy of Santos,” Schifter said. “And that is the real risk, that it could sort of become even more difficult to work things out with him unless he’s magnanimous about this going to Santos.”

In an e-mail to FP, a congressional aide reiterated the difficulties this creates for Santos’s already complicated relationship with Uribe, and said that the award is not expected to change the political climate in Colombia.

“Uribe is a force to be reckoned with and a Nobel Peace Prize won’t convince Uribe to come on board,” he said, pointing out that Santos will likely make “good faith efforts” to include Uribe and make changes to the accord, but that ultimately Santos can still rewrite the agreement and put it into force anyway.
“I don’t think it will have much of an impact,” he said.

Still, others remain hopeful that the prize will do enough to sway public opinion, considering the vote margin that made the referendum fail was so tiny to begin with.

Adam Isacson, a senior associate for regional security policy at the Washington Office on Latin America, said that if the process ultimately fails, “it’s Uribe who will get most of the blame.”

“It increases the pressure on him to cooperate with Santos,” he wrote in an email to FP. “It also gives him an incentive to throw the hardliners in his ‘No’ coalition under the bus, at least partially, by agreeing on more modest changes to the accord.”

And Jason Marczak, director of the Latin America Economic Growth Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Latin America center, reiterated Uribe’s potential role in cementing a more inclusive peace deal this time around.

Although exactly what role Uribe might play remains unclear, “what’s important from the peace prize is the fact that it’s an international stamp of approval that the broader global community is firmly behind Colombia and its president,” Marczak said.

FP Senior Reporter John Hudson contributed to this report.

Photo credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Desmond Tutu: I want right to end my life through assisted dying

Terminally ill people ‘should have right to choose a dignified assisted death’, writes archbishop on his 85th birthday

 Desmond Tutu celebrates mass with Dean Michael Weeder, right, to mark his 85th birthday at St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town. Photograph: Rodger Bosch/AFP/Getty Images

Harriet Sherwood Religion correspondent-Friday 7 October 2016

Desmond Tutu has said he would like the option of ending his life through assisted dying as he called on politicians, lawmakers and religious leaders to take action on the issue.

In an article published on his 85th birthday on Friday, and following several spells in hospital this year for recurring infections, the emeritus archbishop of Cape Town and anti-apartheid activist reiterated his support for assisted dying, firstdisclosed in the Guardian in 2014.

“With my life closer to its end than its beginning, I wish to help give people dignity in dying,” he wrote in the Washington Post.

“Just as I have argued firmly for compassion and fairness in life, I believe that terminally ill people should be treated with the same compassion and fairness when it comes to their deaths,” he added.

“Dying people should have the right to choose how and when they leave Mother Earth. I believe that, alongside the wonderful palliative care that exists, their choices should include a dignified assisted death.”

 Desmond Tutu: ‘For those suffering unbearably and coming to the end of their lives, merely knowing that an assisted death is open to them can provide immeasurable comfort.’ Photograph: Rodger Bosch/AFP/Getty Images

Tutu had changed his mind over assisted suicide two years ago after a lifelong opposition but had remained ambiguous about whether he personally would choose such a death.

He said: “Today, I myself am even closer to the departures hall than arrivals, so to speak, and my thoughts turn to how I would like to be treated when the time comes. Now more than ever, I feel compelled to lend my voice to this cause.”

He believed in the sanctity of life but also that terminally ill people should not be forced to endure terrible pain and suffering, he wrote. Instead they should have control over the manner and timing of their death.

He added: “I have prepared for my death and have made it clear that I do not wish to be kept alive at all costs. I hope I am treated with compassion and allowed to pass on to the next phase of life’s journey in the manner of my choice.”

Tutu pointed to laws in California and Canada that permit assisted dying for terminally ill people. But “there are still many thousands of dying people across the world who are denied their right to die with dignity”.

He said: “For those suffering unbearably and coming to the end of their lives, merely knowing that an assisted death is open to them can provide immeasurable comfort.”

He concluded: “In refusing dying people the right to die with dignity, we fail to demonstrate the compassion that lies at the heart of Christian values. I pray that politicians, lawmakers and religious leaders have the courage to support the choices terminally ill citizens make in departing Mother Earth. The time to act is now.”

Tutu, who won the Nobel peace prize in 1984, has been admitted to hospital several times, most recently in September, for recurring infections as a result of surgery for prostate cancer.

Assisted dying is legal in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Albania, Colombia and Japan as well as Canada. Several US states have enacted measures on assisted dying, including Washington, California, Oregon, Vermont and New Mexico.

In September last year, the UK parliament rejected a bill to allow assisted dying for the terminally ill, with 330 MPs voting against it and 118 backing the measure, despite an opinion poll showing it was supported by 82% of the public. The same poll suggested that 44% of people would break the law to help a loved one to die, risking a jail sentence of up to 14 years.

Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, who sits in the House of Lords, urged MPs to reject the bill along with other faith leaders.

Former archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey has argued for assisted dying to be lawful, saying such a move would be “profoundly Christian and moral”. Tutu wrote: “His initiative has my blessing and support – as do similar initiatives in my home country, South Africa, throughout the United States and across the globe.”

Tutu has also been a vocal advocate for women’s rights, a staunch opponent of homophobia, a campaigner on poverty, for people with HIV/Aids and on climate change. He headed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in post-apartheid South Africa. Nelson Mandela described him as the “voice of the voiceless”.

Alternative medicine treatment put four-year-old boy in A&E

7 October 2016

The plight of a four-year-old boy who nearly died after his parents gave him 12 alternative medicines has prompted doctors to warn against the treatments.

Doctors at Newham Hospital in east London said the parents were "devastated" that their good intentions had made him so unwell.

The boy took a dozen supplements supposedly to help treat his autism.

The National Autistic Society said it was crucial for doctors to talk through the risks of alternative therapies.

The boy developed a potentially fatal condition after taking supplements from a naturopath (natural health practitioner) for a number of months, which included vitamin D, camel's milk, silver and Epsom bath salts.

He was admitted to A&E after losing 6.5lbs (3kg) over three weeks, suffering from symptoms including vomiting and extreme thirst.

SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARYImage caption'Often parents think that supplements are natural, safe...but this is not true in many cases'

Dr Catriona Boyd and Dr Abdul Moodambail, writing in the British Medical Journal Case Reports, said it was not until the boy had been at Newham Hospital, which is part of St Bart's Health Trust, for several days that his mother told them about the holistic supplements.

Dr Moodambail told the BBC: "This happens on many occasions with other patients as well.

"Often the parents think that these supplements are natural, safe and do not cause any side effects or adverse effects, but this is not true in many cases like this."

He added: "The situation was stark because the child developed vitamin D toxicity leading to very high calcium levels, making the child quite unwell and this can even be fatal as well."

The boy made a full recovery in two weeks after being treated with hyperhydration and medications to reduce his calcium level.

[What are complementary and alternative therapies?

• Complementary and alternative medicines (CAMs) are treatments that fall outside of mainstream healthcare
• Generally when a non-mainstream practice is used together with conventional medicine, it is considered "complementary"
• When a non-mainstream practice is used instead of conventional medicine, it is considered "alternative"
• Examples of CAMS include homeopathy, acupuncture, osteopathy, chiropractic and herbal medicines
• Some complementary and alternative medicines or treatments are based on principles and an evidence base that are not recognised by the majority of independent scientists
• Others have been proven to work for a limited number of health conditions, such as osteopathy, chiropractic and acupuncture for treating lower back pain
• When a person uses any health treatment - including a CAM - and experiences an improvement, this may be due to the placebo effect
• Osteopaths and chiropractors are regulated in the same way as mainstream medical professionals
• There is no statutory professional regulation of any other CAM practitioners

Source: NHS Choices

Dr Boyd and Dr Moodambail's report said they often saw parents turning to alternative remedies to treat children with long-term conditions.

Dr Moodambail said: "This is a common situation because there is no definite curative treatment in some of these long-term conditions such as Autism Spectrum Disorder.

"When some complementary and alternative therapies are suggesting they can cure these situations, these parents get a hope - which is probably a false hope."

The report's authors are recommending that it becomes routine practice to gather information about any complementary treatments being used as part of the history-taking process for all patients.

Lack of regulation

They said although "families may report benefits with these treatments" there was a problem with the lack of regulation of their use.

In 2010 an Australian report warned alternative remedies can be dangerous for children and even prove fatal if taken instead of conventional drugs.

Jane Harris, director of external affairs at the National Autistic Society, said the case showed how "desperately difficult life can get for families affected by autism especially just before and after receiving diagnoses".

She added: "Most of us know very little about autism until it affects someone we love and it can be hard for individuals and their families to find good, reliable information about autism.

"This leaves many families feeling vulnerable and in desperation - some may consider using unproven and potentially harmful alternative therapies.

"This awful case shows we need more professionals in place to give families accurate advice and talk to them about what really helps and how to find the right support.

"It's crucial that doctors and healthcare professionals take the concerns of families seriously and are able to talk through the potential risks of alternative therapies, even when they might seem harmless."

NEW POLICY ON DURABLE SOLUTIONS IN SRI LANKA: THE CHALLENGE OF IMPLEMENTATION

(Internally displaced woman in a Welfare Centre in the Jaffna area, Northern Sri Lanka, January 2016.)

06/10/2016

On 16 August 2016, the Sri Lankan Cabinet approved a “National Policy on Durable Solutions for Conflict-affected Displacement”. Guest bloggers Laurie Wiseberg and Mirak Raheem discuss the new policy and its implementation.

The Context

The drafting process, which took a year to complete, was initiated after a change of Government, six years after the conclusion of Sri Lanka’s 30 year-long civil war. That conflict displaced more than a million Sri Lankans both internally and as refugees. When the drafting commenced, the majority of internally displaced persons (IDPs) had returned to their places of origin, but there were still over 40,000 IDPs in the country (some 3,000 in welfare centres in the Jaffna district), and more than 100,000 Sri Lankan refugees in India and elsewhere. There were also communities who had been officially resettled but remained in a highly vulnerable situation and continued to struggle to find durable solutions.Thus, the Preamble to the policy notes that the search for durable solutions is both “a human rights imperative and a critical step towards national reconciliation and peace consolidation.”

The Process

The policy was drafted by the Ministry of Prison Reforms, Rehabilitation, Resettlement and Hindu Religious Affairs (MoR) with assistance from of a small team of consultants supported by the United Nations: a Senior Protection Officer (SPO) from ProCap (actually two ProCap SPOs, each for 6 months, one who was there at the start and the other for the finalization of the policy, both with knowledge and experience from multiple displacement contexts), a national consultant with extensive knowledge and with contacts in civil society working on the issue, and two national UN Volunteers. To assist them, they established an Expert Group which met periodically to review and comment on the evolving draft.

The work began with a review of earlier resettlement policy initiatives and other efforts to address displacement including the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) report, and key international standards such as the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and the IASC Framework on Durable Solutions. The team was unanimous in believing that all major stakeholders had to engage in the drafting process and their views be incorporated if there was to be subsequent implementation and support for the policy. Thus, extensive consultations were held to ensure that key stakeholders were involved, with particular attention to the war-affected areas in the Northern and Eastern provinces: with the IDPs, host communities and others affected by displacement; Governors, Chief Ministers and local officials in these two provinces; all relevant Ministries and other State agencies (often on a bi-lateral basis) in Colombo; civil society and academia involved in displacement work; UN and other international agencies; and interested foreign Governments and donors. Drafts were widely circulated and posted on MoR’s website, which invited comment. The near final draft was reviewed on 21 March 2016, paragraph by paragraph, by senior staff (at the level of Secretary or Additional Secretary of Ministries) at a meeting of the National Steering Committee on Resettlement, chaired by MoR Minister, Hon. D. M. Swaminathanan. Suggested changes were incorporated, the document translated into Sinhala and Tamil, and distributed one last time to all relevant stakeholders before being sent to Cabinet.

National Steering Committee Consultation pane

The Substance of the Policy

The policy is rooted in a rights-based approach to dealing with displacement and underscores the Government’s determination to finding durable solutions for conflict-affected displaced populations, irrespective of region, gender, ethnicity, age, language, political belief, caste or creed, or year of displacement. It sets out the rights and entitlements of the displaced and aims at ensuring that all those affected – both internally displaced persons and refugee returnees – can secure durable solutions. It highlights the need for relief and rehabilitation assistance but also draws attention to a number of other areas, particularly vulnerable persons among the displaced, including the differently abled, female headed-households and elderly, protection and psycho-social needs, and transitional justice processes. While addressing key aspects of displacement and durable solutions, the policy strongly recommends that resettlement is integrated into reconciliation and development policies.

Of particular note in the policy is Section VII, entitled “Major Obstacle to Durable Solutions”, which was included to ensure that the policy would be grounded in the Sri Lankan reality and not left simply at the level of general principles. In this Section, the policy identifies immediate steps that need to be taken to address key obstacles to achieving durable solutions including but not limited to occupation of land by State actors, landlessness, land disputes, remaining landmines, lack of assistance and lack of infrastructure.

The Challenge

The challenge, of course, is implementation. Sri Lanka is currently at a critical juncture where the issue of conflict-affected displacement can be addressed and resolved. The national policy provides the framework to do so and emphasizes the collective role of all ministries and agencies, development partners and civil society to actively collaborate and partner in development programming and implementation towards achieving this end.

The implementation of the policy is to be monitored by a committee within the Ministry which is to report regularly to an Inter-Ministerial Committee on Resettlement and the National Policy Committee chaired by the President. The Ministry is also to ensure that there are grievance mechanisms established at the district and central levels to hear, decide and take steps to resolve complaints filed by IDPs, refugee returnees and other persons of concern under this policy.

If this policy is effectively implemented, it can serve as a model on the basis of which a more general policy or law can be developed to address all displacement issues in Sri Lanka, including those which occur frequently as a result of natural disaster and development projects. It may also serve as a model for other countries in the region and beyond which have serious displacement problems.

About the authors

Laurie S Wiseberg has been a Senior Protection Officer with Procap since its inception in 2005 and has worked in IDP contexts (war or natural disasters) in situations as diverse as Afghanistan Pakistan, Sudan, Iraq, Nepal, Philippines, CAR and Solomon Islands. Her work in Afghanistan in 2012-2013 also led to the adoption by the Government of an IDP policy. She holds a doctorate in Political Science from UCLA, was Executive Director of Human Rights Internet (an international NGO network) for 20 years, and subsequently worked for OHCHR as NGO Liaison for the World Conference Against Racism and then in the Balkans. Her assignment in Sri Lanka was from January to July 2016.

Mirak Raheem is an independent researcher working in Sri Lanka. He worked as the national consultant on developing the policy from July 2015 to July 2016. He has for over a decade worked on humanitarian and human rights issues and published a number of reports on these issues, in addition to being engaged on related advocacy initiatives. He is currently a member of the Consultation Task Force on Reconciliation Mechanisms appointed by the Sri Lankan Government.

Law Enforcement Vs. Human Rights & The Wijeyadasa Amendment

By Somapala Gunadheera –October 7, 2016

Somapala Gunadheera

A news item in the Island of the 3rd instant highlights a controversy that has arisen with the publication of a Bill proposing to introduce a new section to the Criminal Procedure Code to deprive suspects’ access to lawyers until their statements were recorded, thus withdrawing the rights already guaranteed by the State under rules made by the Inspector General of Police in accordance with the Police Ordinance. The proposed Section 37A(1) states, “any person who has been arrested and detained in custody, shall have the right to retain and consult an Attorney-at-law of his choice at his own expense, after the recording of his statements in terms of the provisions of subsection (1) of the section 110 and prior to being produced before a Magistrate.”

Justice Minister Dr Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe

Justice Minister DrWijeyadasa Rajapakshe, PC, has emphatically stated that the government would go ahead with the proposed amendment to the Criminal Procedure Code meant to deprive lawyers an opportunity to meet their clients before the police recorded their statements. He has alleged that in their anxiety to protect the interests of the suspects, both theHRCSL and BASL had turned a blind eye to the suffering of the victims, overlooking the difficulties experienced by law enforcement authorities fighting crime as well as ordinary law abiding citizens. Of course no one can shut out legal assistance before a suspect arrives at a Police station, unless he is suddenly arrested.

In a letter addressed to the President, BASL President Geoffrey Alagaratnam has pointed out, “The Protection of Victims of Crime and Witnesses Act No. 4 of 2015, grants an aggrieved party a right of representation at the police station from the inception. However a suspect’s right to be represented will be limited by the proposed Bill resulting in unequal treatment”. The HRCSL has alleged that there had been many instances of torture as well as cruel, inhuman treatment of suspects at police stations between the period of arrest and the conclusion of the recording of their statements. Dr Deepika Udagama, the Chairperson of the HRC, has warned, “Depriving suspects under arrest and detention of access to their lawyers, until the conclusions of their statements, will result in a greater risk of suspects being subject to torture, cruel and inhuman treatment as well as illegal arrest and detention by errant police officers. The passage of the new Bill will hinder the efforts of the Government which has expressed its determination to stop torture in Sri Lanka.” Practically however, the dangers feared by HR activists cannot be completely eliminated by seeking legal assistance as no such assistance is available overnight.

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Sri Lanka’s Northern Provincial Council seeks probe into Chief Minister Wigneswaran’s complaint about life threat

C.V.Wigneswaran (File|EPS)

By P K Balachandran-06th October 2016

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s  Northern Provincial Council (NPC) on Thursday passed a resolution  seeking an investigation into  Chief Minister C.V.Wigneswaran’s charge that he has been continually receiving information about a plot to assassinate him and put the blame on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

“The resolution asked the Inspector General of Police to investigate the complaint and, if necessary, increase security for the Chief Minister,” the Chairman of the NPC, C.V.K.Sivagnanam , told Express.

On Tuesday,  the Secretary  General of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Mavai Senathirajah had said that he had asked TNA chief, R.Sampanthan, to discuss the matter with Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena,  and seek enhanced police protection for Wigneswaran.

Senathirajah told the media that Wigneswaran, having been a Supreme Court judge before entering politics in 2013, would not have made a charge of such seriousness in writing, without grounds.

Wigneswaran had made the charge on October 1, in a written speech which was read out at the release of a book written by Prof.Thirunavukkarasu on Sri Lankan constitutional history from the Donoughmore constitution in the 1930s to the one being drafted by incumbent President Sirisena.

In the written speech, which was carried by all Tamil newspapers on October 2, Wigneswaran said that the Tamils were cheated in the past and are being cheated now too, by the powers-that-be in South Sri Lanka. But if he expresses these grievances, he is misinterpreted and accused of being a communalist and extremist ,he said. He then went on to mention a threat to his life from Sinhalese-majority South Sri Lanka.

However, on October 2, when Wigneswaran attended a national sports event in Jaffna along with President Mihripala Sirisena, he did not mention any threat to his life in his speech. He wailed about his being misinterpreted by the Sinhalese without first getting his speeches correctly translated from the Tamil original. He spoke in Sinhalese also so that the President and other ministers and officials from South Sri Lanka could follow him.

Some political observers wondered why he did not mention the alleged threat to his life in the presence of the President.

Moderate Tamils feared that such statements might needlessly exacerbate ethnic tensions in Sri Lanka.
But were relieved to find both North and South Sri Lankans taking Wigneswaran’s allegation in the stride.

Auditor General Confirms Country Lost Rs. 1.6 Billion Due To Bond Scam, COPE Report Out This Month

With the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) scheduled to submit its findings on the bond scam at Central Bank later this month, the Auditor General has confirmed that the country lost a staggering Rs. 1.6 billion due to the scam, highly placed sources said.

Auditor General Gamini Wijesinghe

The Auditor General had reaffirmed his findings via a communication addressed to the COPE, which is currently finalizing the report on the Bond Scam, despite facing setbacks especially with several UNP members in the COPE attempting to derail the investigation, claiming that the Auditor General’s report is not ‘acceptable.’

Last months, Chairman of COPE Sunil Handunneththi assured Parliament that there was no move to sweep the bond scam under the carpet, in response to an allegation by Joint Opposition MP Bandula Gunawardane that the COPE was attempting to sweep the matter under the carpet due to pressure from certain groups within the government.

In June, the Colombo Telegraph reported that Auditor General implicated ex-Governor of Central Bank, Arjuna Mahendran in the bond scam in a 1200 report that was submitted to Speaker Karu Jayasuriya and COPE. No sooner the highly damaging report on Mahendran was issued, several UNP members kicked off a campaign to work in a manner aimed at jeopardizing the COPE investigation, in their efforts to safeguard Mahendran, who was appointed to the Central Bank Governor post by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. Soon after the Auditor General’s report was released, several UNP MPs had criticized the report and said that it was not acceptable and therefore a report from an independent party was required.

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Plight of Tamil Political Prisoners

Oct 06, 2016

“My son is Sellaiya Sudis Kumar.   He was arrested on January 28, 2008 while he was traveling to Colombo for bring medicinal items for the hospital. No one interest to take that risk during that period. 

My son told that he should go to Colombo to bring medicinal items from a Colombo government office for the benefit of patients at the hospital. Vavuniya police told us my son was arrested due to his involvement with LTTE and imprisoned in prison in Vavuniya.  After that he was questioned and beaten by officers CID (Criminal Investigative Department) in Colombo. Then he has been transferred to Anuradhapura prison and Colombo. I went to visit him every prisons. It was not easy task due to needs to get a pass from the LTTE. He is 37 years now and have child at age of 12 years old.  I have send letters to many authorities including President and Prime Minister. But I did not receive justice for my son. He was not a LTTE supporter. As a mother, I urge President Maitripala Sirisena to release all Tamil political prisoners without delay,” said Sellaiya Maheswari (63) in Kilinochchi in the Northern Province to Lanka News Web on September 30, 2016.
 
Above said painful story is not limit for Maheshwari. The bitter truth is it similar to the stories of relatives of many Tamil Political Prisoners in island wide.
 
Seventy Eight Tamil inmates in Anuradhapura Prison commenced a hunger strike on September 21, 2016 demanding the authorities to either release them grant them bail or put them on trial.  It was not the first time they engaged in hunger strike. Although they were engaged in hunger strikes several times since they were imprisoned the authorities have been given number of broken promises for them.
 
They are being held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), which allows the security forces to detain people for up to 18 months without bringing the before the court. Some of them were captive without any charges. Most of them have been imprisoned on suspicion of link with the LTTE (Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam) which was founded in 1976 and possessed its own “Military’ – Tigers (infantry), Sea Tigers (Sea wing) and Air Tigers (Air Wing), in the world, began its armed campaign in Sri Lanka for a separate Tamil homeland in 1983. LTTE was defeated by the Sri Lankan Security Forces in the month of May, 2009.
 
Since the authorities failed to deliver justice for Tamil political prisoners Tamil politicians, civil rights activists and relatives of inmates rushed to the street several times launched demonstrations demanding release Tamil political prisoners.  
 
Talking to Lanka News Web Father Mariamuttu Sathivel, convener of Movement of Release of Political Prisoners pointed out that suspected LTTE inmates are political prisoners due to they have been taken to the custody under the Prevention of Terrorism Act  (PTA) 1978.
“Some of Tamil inmates have been inhuman punishments in the custody. We do not have statistics of Tamil prisoners. The government neglected to issue their list. Tamil prisoners’ issue is a political and national problem.”
 
He added, “Most of Tamil inmates have given confessions to relevant officers. But we know that how they take it from inmates.”
 
According to Father Sathivel their movement has taken number of actions such as protest marches, demonstrations and sending petitions to authorities for pressure the government to release political prisoners
 
“Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa has been given presidential pardon for Karuna, Daya Master and Pillaiyan.  As well as President Maitripala Sirisena has given a presidential pardon for Sivaraja Jenivan who an attempt to assassinate the President Sirisena in 2006. If so, why the President Sirisena not follow the same procedure to other Tamil inmates? said Sathivel, Anglican priest.
 
“The issue of Tamil inmates is a political problem. Therefore government should find a prompt action to release suspected LTTE supporters without unconditionally,” he added.
 
The Constitution of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka has been pointed out the fundamental rights of citizens of Sri Lanka as follows:
 
“Chapter III - Fundamental Rights
 
13 (1) No person shall be arrested except according to procedure established by law. Any person arrested shall be informed of the reason for his arrest.
 
(2) Every person held in custody, detained or otherwise deprived of personal liberty shall be brought before the judge of the nearest competent court according to procedure established by law, and shall not be further held in custody, detained or deprived of personal liberty except upon and in terms of the order of suet. judge made in accordance with procedure established by law.
 
(3) Any person charged with an offence shall he entitled to be heard, in person or by an attorney at-law at a fair trial by a competent court.
 
(4) No person shall be punished with death or imprisonment except by order of a competent court, made in accordance with procedure established by law. The arrest, holding in custody, detention or other deprivation of personal liberty of a person, pending investigation or trial, shall not constitute punishment.”
 
It is very clear that the government of Sri Lanka not ready to follow their constitution. If they really practice their supreme law in the country we never heard about hunger strike stories of Tamil political prisoners.
 
If the government can rehabilitate and free 12,000 ex-LTTE members why they play with lives of less two hundred Tamil inmates who suffer in prison since 1997?
 
The new Ranil-Maitri coalition government has been pledged their countrymen to protect democratic rights and stand for good governance and accountability. The new government should take this Tamil inmate issue seriously and release them without charges as a genuine witness to the process of reconciliation in the 30 years war hit Sri Lanka.
 
President Maitripala Sirisena has been given a presidential pardon for the Tamil rebel who attempted to kill him. It has given very good impression to the world. If so, President Sirisena can follow the same thing for other Tamil political prisoners. If he can come up with such stern decision Tamil political prisoners can reunion with their family members. And which is more no one can misuse Tamil inmates for their hidden political games.
 
Citizens of Sri Lanka have a social responsibility to pressure the President Sirisena to declare a presidential pardon for ex-LTTE members in jail.
 
The authorities should understand that Tamil inmates suffered a lot during last decades in the prison. Therefore there is no other option than presidential pardon to release them.
 
“Nahi verena verani,
sammantidha kudacanam,
 averena ca sammanti,
esa dhammo sanantano.”
 
(Hatred is, indeed, never appeased by hatred in this world. It is appeased only by loving-kindness. This is an ancient law.) – Dhammapada Verse 5.
 
By Lawrence Ferdinando - Colombo.