Saturday, December 17, 2016

In Donald Trump’s USA, H2O has already trumped CO2

Saturday, 17 December 2016

As long as water vapour is in the atmosphere, it is a far more dangerous greenhouse gas than CO2, when it comes down after a fortnight or after a decade it could lead to snow storms, cyclones, etc. and once it has come down it could lead to landslides, flooding, etc. So are not all these different aspects of climate change?

Introduction

In Donald Trump.docx by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

South Korea's biggest market bans dog slaughtering

'The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated' says city mayor

Animal rights protestors demonstrate close to the market in Seongnam Getty

Peter Walker-Wednesday 14 December 2016

Dog slaughter and butchering is being abolished at South Korea’s largest dog meat market in a move being described by welfare campaigners as a step toward a nationwide ban.

Slaughter facilities at Moran Market in Seongnam will be confiscated from its 22 dog meat dealers as early as next week.

The legitimacy of the country’s dog meat industry is a grey area.

It is simultaneously legalised, and illegalised, in two different pieces of South Korean law.

"Seongnam city took a big step toward changing the dog meat industry here,” said Korean Animal Welfare Association official Jang In-young.

“But we will have to constantly monitor dog meat shops in the market to see if they really stop slaughtering dogs and change their business.

“The city government will also need to keep pushing the idea to ultimately ban the sales of dog meat here.”

Moran Market, which opened in the 1960s and sells all sorts including antiques and live animals, sees an estimated 80,000 pooches sold dead or alive each year.

The notorious spot supplies an estimated one third of all dog meat consumed in the country and live dogs are kept in cages for customers to pick out.

Seongnam city official Kang Won-gu told The Korea Herald he wanted to “ultimately stop” the dog meat trade at the market.

City mayor Lee Jae-myung said: “This may be the beginning of [a long path toward] solving issues surrounding dog meat consumption.

“This will hopefully eradicate the negative image of Moran Market.

“Seongnam city will take the initiative to transform South Korea’s image since the greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”

Animal rights activist saves dogs from Yulin festival

The country’s Livestock Industry Act classifies dogs as livestock, so therefore can be killed for consumption, but says they cannot be killed inhumanly.

The Livestock Products Sanitary Control Act however does not define dogs as livestock or animals for consumption.

South Korea’s Animal Protection Act of 2007 states that “killing in a cruel way such as hanging” and “killing in an open area” is illegal.

China is believed to consume more dog meat than any other country, and around 10,000 dogs were killed at its annual Yulin festival this year.

Babies made from three people approved in UK

Hannah explains why she will benefit from the three-person baby procedure

Babies made from two women and one man have been approved by the UK's fertility regulator.

By James Gallagher-15 December 2016

The historic and controversial move is to prevent children being born with deadly genetic diseases.

Doctors in Newcastle - who developed the advanced form of IVF - are expected to be the first to offer the procedure and have already appealed for donor eggs.

The first such child could be born, at the earliest, by the end of 2017.

Some families have lost multiple children to incurable mitochondrial diseases, which can leave people with insufficient energy to keep their heart beating.

The diseases are passed down from only the mother so a technique using a donor egg as well as the mother's egg and father's sperm has been developed.

The resulting child has a tiny amount of their DNA from the donor, but the procedure is legal and reviews say it is ethical and scientifically ready.

'Historic'

"It is a decision of historic importance," said Sally Cheshire, chairwoman of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA).

"This is about cautious go ahead, not gung-ho go ahead, and there is a long way to go.

"I'm sure patients will be really pleased by what we've decided today."

Listen to what the decision means to Hannah on the World At One

But some scientists have questioned the ethics of the technique, saying it could open the door to genetically-modified 'designer' babies.

The HFEA must approve every clinic and every patient before the procedure can take place.

Three-person babies have been allowed only in cases where the risk of a child developing mitochondrial disease is very high.

Clinics can now apply to the HFEA for a licence to conduct three-person IVF.

Donors needed

The team at Newcastle-upon-Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Newcastle University is expected to be the first to be granted a licence.

It aims to help 25 couples every year.

Prof Mary Herbert, from the Newcastle Fertility Centre, said: "It is enormously gratifying that our many years of research in this area can finally be applied to help families affected by these devastating diseases.

"Now that that we are moving forward towards clinical treatments, we will also need donors to donate eggs for use in treatment to prevent affected women transmitting disease to their children."

Prof Sir Doug Turnbull, the director of the Wellcome Centre for Mitochondrial Research at Newcastle University, said: "We are delighted by today's decision.

"We will also provide long-term follow up of any children born."

NHS England has agreed to fund the treatment costs of the first trial of three-person IVF for those women who meet the HFEA criteria, as long as they agree to long-term follow up of their children after they are born.

How does it work?

Mitochondrial disease is caused by defective mitochondria - the tiny structures in nearly every cell that convert food into useable energy.

One in 4,300 children are born with such severe symptoms they develop muscle weakness, blindness, deafness, seizures, learning disabilities, diabetes, heart and liver failure. It is often fatal.

The aim of the procedure is to get the healthy mitochondria from the donor.

But mitochondria have their own DNA, which is why resulting children have DNA from three people.

However, everything that defines physical and personality traits still comes from parents.

Method one: Embryo repair

METHOD ONE: EMBRYO REPAIR-Image caption1) Two eggs are fertilised with sperm, creating an embryo from the intended parents and another from the donors 2) The pronuclei, which contain genetic information, are removed from both embryos but only the parents' are kept 3) A healthy embryo is created by adding the parents' pronuclei to the donor embryo, which is finally implanted into the womb
Method two: Egg repair

1) Eggs from a mother with damaged mitochondria and a donor with healthy mitochondria are collected 2) The majority of the genetic material is removed from both eggs 3) The mother's genetic material is inserted into the donor egg, which can be fertilised by sperm.

Robert Meadowcroft, from the charity Muscular Dystrophy UK, said: "This historic decision will open the door to the first licensed treatments being offered.

"We know of many women who have faced heartache and tragedy and the sorrow of stillbirths, while trying to start their own family, and this decision gives them new hope and choice for the first time."

Prof Frances Flinter, professor in clinical genetics at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, called the decision "wonderful news".

She added: "It is infinitely preferable that the early clinical trials should be done in a tightly regulated system in the UK, with long term follow-up of any children born, rather than in countries where there is no regulation or oversight."

Prof Sir Robert Lechler, president of the Academy of Medical Science, said that the decision means "groundbreaking research can now be translated from theory into practice and transform lives in the clinic".

However, the decision is not universally welcome.

Dr David King, from the campaign group Human Genetics Alert, said: "This decision opens the door to the world of genetically-modified designer babies.

"Already, bioethicists have started to argue that allowing mitochondrial replacement means that there is no logical basis for resisting GM babies, which is exactly how slippery slopes work."

However, the UK will not be the first country in the world to have children born through the three-person technique.

A Jordanian couple and doctors in New York performed the procedure in Mexico and the resulting baby is understood to be healthy.

Follow James on Twitter.

Friday, December 16, 2016

SRI LANKA: Conspiracy to deny due process rights to Sri Lankan citizens

by Basil Fernando-December 15, 2016

In last week's article, we discussed the recommendations of the United Nation's Committee against Torture. The Committee has recommended the state party establish an independent body tasked with the investigation of complaints against law enforcement officers, one that is independent of police hierarchy. In this week’s article, we will discuss a few more recommendations of the Committee, in particular those relating to improving the due process rights of detained persons, the need for stopping the practice of arrest without a warrant authorised by a Magistrate, the duty of the Prosecutor’s Office, i.e. the Attorney General's Office, and the Judiciary itself, to supervise criminal investigations and thereby contribute to improvement of the justice system.

The Committee has noted that several due process rights recognised internationally have not yet been enshrined in national legislation. For example, the right to inform the next of kin about the arrest is not enshrined as part of Sri Lankan law. One may recall the instance when the Saliyawewa Police Station arrested a young boy of 15 under suspicion that he had stolen a gold necklace. The boy was tortured.

He was made to sit on red anthill for about 20 minutes, and thereafter he was hung from a beam at the Police Station and beaten up. The next day the police discovered the actual culprit who had stolen the necklace. Then, the police apologised to the boy's family about the wrongful arrest and for treating the boy inhumanely, even worse than a criminal.

Initially, police took no trouble at all to inform the family of the arrest and the reason for such arrest. When the mother heard of the arrest through other means, she went to the Police Station. However, she was not even allowed to talk to the boy. She spent the whole night near the Police Station and left the Police Station only when the gates of the Police Station were closed and locked.

This story reveals the complete misconception about the powers of arrest on the part of the police officers. These powers are given only for the purpose of investigating a crime and such investigations need to be done while respecting the rights of the individual being arrested and the rights of the family to which he or she belongs. Arrest does not imply forcible “stealing” of a person. The arrest does not give the police the rights to violate the sacred rules relating to family relationships.

The arrest of this boy shows that the police, at the early stages of the arrest, want to keep the whole episode a secret. They wanted to assure for themselves complete secrecy so that they can do whatever they like with the person they have arrested. Implied in this behaviour is an ingrained belief among the police that an arrested person is a play-thing in their hands. The belief is that they can do whatever they like in the process of what they believe is an attempt to discover the truth.

However, the law does not give the police such rights. What the law allows is to take the arrested person with the primary duty of protection of the person thus arrested. At the point of arrest, the arresting officers take upon themselves the duty of protecting the person they have arrested. The arresting process is not an activity of a predator against its prey. It is, in fact, an activity of officers who represent the state engaging in a responsible duty that implies complete protection of the individual.

The protection of the individual always implies respect for the rights of the family to which he belongs. The deepest social link of any individual is his family. When the state deals with an individual it must always respect the rights of the family and there are very good reasons to explain this obligation to respect the family at the moment of any arrest. When the next of kin is informed of an arrest, the family has an opportunity to be engaged in doing what it legitimately do on behalf of the arrested person.

For example, if the police informed the family of this boy’s arrest, the family could have immediately intervened to inform the police about where the boy had been throughout the relevant period, including during the time the alleged incident of the theft had taken place.

If the police were in possession of this information they could have compared it to whatever they had assumed or suspected and thereby guided themselves rationally to find out what really happened.

If that process had taken place, the subsequent events, like getting the boy bitten by ants and hanging him from beams and then assaulting him would not have happened. The boy would have been released within a short period when the police would have found, on the basis of information received from the family and others, that the police suspicions were unfounded.

By the police wanting to maintain secrecy regarding arrests, what is revealed is the intention on the part of the arresting police officers to hurt the arrested person for the purpose of getting a confirmation of their suspicions. Here, what the police do is not a rational activity; it is in fact criminal activity. An intention to hurt any individual is impermissible.

This is the reason for the Committee to insist that there is something missing in Sri Lankan law, in there being no legislation to the effect that the next of kin must be informed about an arrest of a person. Many decades of discussion on this issue clearly shows that the Sri Lankan government and its authorities are fully aware of this obligation. Previous governments have tried to overcome this problem through letters and circulars issued by the President himself, instructing the police that they should inform the family when the arrest of any person takes place. However, these letters and circulars are not legally binding. On an important issue such as this, the bill must be drafted by Parliament and through a legal enactment be passed in the Parliament as law. Why have Sri Lankan governments avoided making such legislation? It cannot be merely oversight. It has to be part of a design. The design is that the police officers can torture a person in their custody. Thus, such a practice has government approval. And the approval has been given by way of an omission in passing a law.

Added to this obligation is the right of a lawyer to be present and to represent an arrested person any time during the arrest. This issue came up as a matter of controversy when a devious attempt was made through a Gazette notification. This Gazette notification stated, “a lawyer could be present only after the end of an interrogation and after a statement has been recorded”. This, devious design, was defeated for the time being, by way of a protest in the media and by responsible organisations. However, it has not been given up altogether.

And this fact shows the government has a design to deny this all-important right of legal representation during arrest. It may be a design of a few persons but since it is done in the name of the government, it becomes a design of the government. The question is why does the government conspire to deny due process rights to Sri Lankan citizens.

This question arises even more sharply with respect to the well-established practice of arrest without warrant. That an arrest should take place only on the basis of a warrant issued by a Magistrate, except in the case of a few well-recognised circumstances, is a fundamental idea embedded in common law. However, this has been undone by way of entrenched practices in the Sri Lankan context.

In fact, the boy in the case we have mentioned would not have been arrested at all, if a warrant had been sought for his arrest through a Magistrate. The Magistrate would not have found any reason at all to justify such an arrest. And this is the reality in thousands and thousands of instances of arrests that have been made and continue to be made on completely baseless grounds. Such arrests are usually followed by a period of detention. All of this could be avoided by introducing the universally recognised principle of allowing arrests only on the basis of a valid warrant of a Magistrate.

Again questions arise: why have Sri Lankan governments desisted from granting this basic right to Sri Lankan citizens? Why is the government engaged in a conspiracy to deny such a basic right to the Sri Lankan people? These are questions that need to be asked and discussed by all those who are concerned with the rights of citizens.

The UNCAT Committee recommended that the government should make legislation on these issues and it is up to the people now to demand from the government that the Committee’s recommendations be respected and implemented.

SRI LANKA: RANIL, SAMPANTHAN REACH OUT TO MAHINDA

Image:Across the aisle: Sri Lanka’s former President Mahinda Rajapaksa greeting Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe last year.

Meera Srinivasan.-16/12/2016

Across the aisle: Sri Lanka’s former President Mahinda Rajapaksa greeting Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe last year.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and leader of Opposition and the Tamil National Alliance R. Sampanthan have sought former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s support for the ongoing constitutional reform efforts in Sri Lanka.

In the first instance of reaching out to the former President, ousted in the presidential and parliamentary elections of 2015, the leaders asked Mr. Rajapaksa, as “a senior and respected leader”, to back the national unity government and other political parties working with it to remake the country’s Constitution, The Hindu learns.

The meeting held at the Prime Minister’s office in Parliament last week was reportedly prompted by President Maithripala Sirisena, who is said to be keen that the former President be brought on board while the country embarks on a new Constitution. It was President Sirisena, political sources close to him said, who asked the Prime Minister and the senior Tamil leader to engage Mr. Rajapaksa on the subject.

When contacted, Mr. Sampanthan confirmed that the meeting took place. “Our efforts should continue given Mahinda Rajapaksa’s own efforts to evolve an acceptable constitutional arrangement during his term in office,” he said, referring to reports from an earlier All Party Representative Committee and an experts’ committee that recommended some measures of devolution.

Tamil question

Soon after it came to power, Sri Lanka’s first national unity government — with President Sirisena of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe of the rival United National Party at its helm — decided to remake the country’s Constitution, with the aim of solving the long-pending Tamil question.

Different groups in Parliament recently submitted their proposals on constitutional reforms to the government. The reports are scheduled to be debated in Parliament in January 2017, after which the matter will be put for vote. Following passage with two-thirds majority, the country is likely to go for a referendum where every citizen will get to vote on the new Constitution.

Departing from his earlier promises as President to “go beyond” the 13th Amendment — an outcome of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord of 1987 that envisaged substantive devolution of powers to the provinces — Mr. Rajapaksa has slammed draft proposals for the new Constitution, opposing suggested reforms on devolving land and police powers to the provinces. While Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, in a recent interview to The Hindu, was confident of having the numbers in Parliament to pass the reforms, Mr. Rajapaksa’s supporters — he remains considerably popular among the Sinhala majority — will be crucial to a favourable vote in the island-wide referendum.

Causing rift

Mr. Rajapaksa, who now sits in Opposition in Parliament, has the support of nearly 50 MPs identifying themselves as the ‘Joint Opposition’, in effect causing a rift within the SLFP part of which cohabits the government. The former President has accused his successor government of being vindictive, in targeting members of his family and other associates charged of offences ranging from corruption to murder.

While Mr. Rajapaksa is yet to voice support to the government’s reform agenda, Mr. Sampanthan said: “He should have no difficulty in becoming part of the current process.”
The Hindu

Among Christians

By Rajan Hoole –December 17, 2016

Dr. Rajan Hoole

Southern Perceptions Mid – 1983 – Part II

It is also instructive to look at how the general drift in communal relations was affect- ing perceptions among the Christian leadership and the larger Christian community. This was a small minority of about 8% of the populace, who were torn between universal ideals (i.e. “In Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew…”) and the strong pressure to prove their nationalist credentials in their respective ethnic camp.

Unlike in this age of ‘politically correct’ statements, back in 1983 people could be brutally frank. A short time before the violence, a writer and journalist with worldwide experience was invited to give a series of talks to Anglican clergy of a rural deanery in Colombo. In his first talk he posed questions about the security forces using inhuman third degree methods in the North. One clergyman responded, “What else could you expect the Government to do?” This appeared to be a widely held position among the audience. Taken aback, the speaker cancelled further talks.

Such sentiments among Christian clergy were then reflected in contributions to the Press. The Sun of 13th July carried a letter by Rev. Fr. D. T. Wickremasinghe OSB attacking Amnesty International over its recent report that was critical of human rights violations in the North by the security forces. He said that the AI report was not to be taken seriously since Marxists had taken positions of responsibility in it by their notorious game of infiltration. There were also several commendable contributions of quality by members of the Sinhalese Christian clergy. A frequent contributor calling for moderation, understanding and dialogue on the ethnic question was the late Rev. Celestine Fernando.

Fr. George B. Perera in a contribution titled ‘In Search of Peace’ in the Sun of 20th June 1983 stated: “If one were to learn any lesson from the past, one cannot be complacent about the current situation of unrest, lawlessness, tension and terrorism in our land. The enforcement of law and order, the employment of the armed forces and police with more authority are only means to meet an emergency situation. The very presence of the armed forces in the North seems to be one of the reasons for the retaliatory type of violence…” He concluded by calling for dialogue.

An appeal for an end to violence by the Rt. Rev. Swithin Fernando, the Anglican Bishop of Colombo, appeared in the Daily News of 29th June. He said that Tamil citizens had taken to violence with a view to gaining redress for what they ‘believe to be injustices’ to which they are subject. We should remind ourselves constantly, he said, that no person should be subject to torture, and that such practices would be a blot on our nation. The mark of a civil society, he re- minded us, was to be on guard at all times. He called for restraint by the armed forces and made a plea that young men should not be named terrorists and isolated.

These were healthy sentiments expressed with much caution about a month before the violence, before President Jayewardene set the line with his much-publicised interview. After that it became very difficult to say even this much for many years.

The ideological grip, which was then much in evidence in the air this nation breathed, was so strong that it was very hard for a Sinhalese to go further than broad generalities, even to touch lightly what the average Tamil experienced. Even the Saturday Review from Jaffna, which communicated that to concerned Sinhalese, had been sealed on 2nd July. However a remarkably frank expression of Tamil perceptions by Vinoth Ramachandra appeared in the Island of 12th July.

“If your readers visit Jaffna and talk with any sample of the populace, they would soon discover that the primary cause of terror lies in the presence of undisciplined security forces sup- ported by repressive legislation. The arbitrary detention of young males, the intimidation of innocent passersby on trivial grounds and the general vindictive spirit of a trigger happy military are quickly driving the public into sympathy for the Tigers.

“Another contributory factor to the sad state of communal relations is the lack of an independent media. While attacks on the armed forces and politicians killed in the North are given ample coverage in the Sinhalese and English press and radio, all incidents of anti-Tamil violence are either ignored altogether or severely distorted. For example in recent weeks the Tamil students at the University of Peradeniya have been living in a state of fear and uncertainty owing to vicious attacks on them by fellow Sinhalese students. In one incident a student barely escaped death when a petrol bomb exploded in his room while he was asleep.

“This situation has been completely ignored by the media which seem to feel that the chant- ing of slogans outside residences of supreme court judges is somehow more criminal than the attempted murder of innocent students. Whether the silence of the media regarding Peradeniya campus Tamil students has been due to a cover up engineered by the university authorities or simply due to journalistic woeful- ness, I cannot say. But I do know that official apathy and biased reporting are rapidly contributing to growing alienation between the two communities.”

Take immediate action for demilitarized the society” – Civil Activists.

Dec 16, 2016

Civic rights groups condemned the government’s efforts on militarization the society.

“We condemn the government’s deploy of militaries to control protests and trade union actions,” said Chamara Nakandala, convener of Parapuraka Balaya (Power of generation)

“We saw that how was the navy commander attack the free armed journalist who cover the event in Hambantota”

During the press conference held at CSR on Dec. 15 Nakandala revealed the military interferences for control the protest held in Ratupaswala.

He added, “Military attacked to arm free people in Ratupaswala.”

“Government should stop militarization,” said convener of Parapuraka Balaya.

Talking to Lanka News Web Chameera Perera, convener of Left Centre said that what we appeal and force government to take immediate action against navy commander.

“It is very important to restore and establish democracy and this is what we assumed from good governance and this was the aspiration of January 8th political transformation.”

He added, “We condemn the behavior of navy commander and we saw that navy commander behaved as a thug leader not as a commander of Navy. During the common candidate campaign people of this country has expectation about demilitarization and restore democracy. Unfortunately, we saw this government soon after January 8 and continue same militarized momentum in this country. Apart from that, leaders of good governance gave morale support to military leaders despite they accused for certain extra judicial killings and abductions during MAhinda Rajapaksa regime. But unfortunately the government was dragging the process, seemed to be stagnated and ultimately paved the way towards this kind of military behavior. In that senses we assume government should take immediate action in order to demilitarized this society and importantly control the military units, military appearances in public actions. They should obey to the democratic institutions. They can’t behave like this.

Lawrence Ferdinando, Colombo.

Muslim Women’s lib and liberal Islam — Part 1

The common sense of the matter is that the law has to be adapted to the conditions of time place

by Izeth Hussain

( December 16, 2016, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The women’s lib (liberation) movement, which in the West had been gathering momentum in the first half of the twentieth century, became much more dynamic and also acquired a global spread in the second half. That is true as a generalisation, but the Islamic world as a whole has been an exception. There it has been a case not of progress but of regress in women’s lib, back to the Middle Ages and even to pre-Islamic times. The regression has been seen most spectacularly in the widespread adoption of a female dress code that is utterly unIslamic. Strangely, the regression shown in the ghastly subjugation of women in a substantial part of the Islamic world has been accompanied by loud boasts that Islam gave equality to females as much as one thousand four hundred years ago, long before the West did. But the West and the rest of the world have been profoundly unimpressed.

The question of women’s lib in Sri Lanka has acquired a sudden urgency. A Commission appointed seven years ago to recommend revision of Muslim personal laws has failed to come up with anything at all. Now the EU wants as a condition for the renewal of GSP + a revision of Muslim personal laws to make them consistent with UN instruments on human rights which have been acceded to by Sri Lanka. That requires changes in Muslim personal laws affecting vexed questions such as child marriage and so on. Presumably a failure to make the requisite changes would lead to a failure to secure renewal of GSP+. That can certainly be expected to add fuel to the ongoing anti-Muslim hate campaign the proponents of which clearly hope to engineer another 1983 holocaust, this time against the Muslims. The supposition up to now has been that the present Government unlike the previous one is not covertly supporting the hate campaign, but we cannot ignore the fact that it has been refusing to take adequate counter-action to stem it. Now veteran Muslim journalist Latheef Farook has brought out a chilling fact in the Island of December 14: the President invited the BBS General Secretary, Gnanasara Thera, to a meeting of religious leaders on December 6. Apparently the President does not share the widespread Buddhist view that Gnanasara Thera is a deviant Buddhist who is dangerous to this country. Anyway we must bear in mind one fact: it is that since 1948 most of our Governments have been world-famous for a mind-boggling stupendous stupidity in managing ethnic relations. Obviously our Muslims should, in their own interest, now give priority to changing their personal laws.

Recently several articles have appeared showing clearly enough that some of the personal laws and the malfunctioning of the Qazi courts amount to a system of oppression of Muslim women: paradoxically they have been suffering injustice under the very institutions set up to secure justice for all including women. I will not repeat the facts and arguments in those articles. Instead I will focus on the underlying reason why it is proving so difficult to change Muslim personal laws. It is that the liberal Islam which sprang from the reform movement started by Jamaldin al-Afghani in the late nineteenth century came to be checked firstly by despotic Muslim leaders who favoured conservatism in religion and later, from the 1970s, by the spread of Saudi-backed Wahabism. It became increasingly difficult to adapt Islam to the needs and aspirations of twentieth century Muslims and to evolve an Islamic form of modernity. I believe that the way out of this impasse has to include a challenge to the notion that the Sharia is the Divine Law, as it is that notion that is at the core of the Muslim resistance to change.

In this article I will be partly summarising and paraphrasing some of the contents of a paper that I presented sometime in the first half of the ‘nineties at a seminar held by the Muslim Women’s Research and Action Forum. It was published by them in booklet form together with another seminar paper in 2000 under the title The Need for Ijtihad or Intellectual Reasoning. The MWRF was headed by Jezima Ismail and has had among its most active members Faizun Zackariya and Anberiya Haniffa, all of whom and others have to be recognised as pioneers in the movement for Muslim Women’s liberation in Sri Lanka. Their success is attested by the fact that there are many more Muslim women like them today.

I will now give a brief account of the critique of the Sharia from the standpoint of the proponents of liberal Islam. I must emphasize before proceeding further that any ad hominem attacks on me on the ground that I am not an Islamic scholar and so on will be out of place because I am doing no more here than expounding the liberal critique of the Sharia as developed by Islamic luminaries of the order of Mohammed Abduh, Ameer Ali, and Iqbal. There are four sources of the Sharia, the first of which is the Koran. The following is from my seminar paper: “We should also consider the implications of the fact that out of 6,000 verses in the Koran, only 600 deal with legal obligations, and the majority of them with religious matters such as prayer, fasting, or pilgrimage. Strictly legal matters are dealt with in only about 80 verses, most of them about women, marriage, and laws of inheritance”.

Those facts must surprise the non-Muslim reader who must ponder over the implications of the fact that the Koranic verses with a legal import are so meager. Surely God could never have intended to prescribe a comprehensive legal system – such as the Sharia – valid and immutable in all places and for all time. I continued as follows: “According to Malise Ruthven’s Islam in the World (1984), Muhammed Azad has argued that the limited scope of ordinances both in the Koran and the Sunna was not due to an oversight. It was meant to avoid legal and social rigidity. The common sense of the matter is that the law has to be adapted to the conditions of time place”.

In a later part of my paper I wrote, “Sir Sayed Ahmed Khan, in the nineteenth century, used the argument of Shah Walliullah of Delhi in the eighteenth century that there are two dimensions to the Koran, one of which was eternal and universal, and the other temporary and locally specific. The Koranic verses with a legal import obviously belong to the latter category. Ahmed Khan proceeded to declare polygamy and slavery forbidden as all laws are subject to change according to circumstances, unlike the five pillars of Islam”. Sir Sayed Ahmed Khan was the famous founder of Aligarh University who, I must point out, continued to hold his exalted position in the Islamic society of his time despite his apparently heretical views.

I continued as follows: “Crucial to the argument of the liberal Muslims are the abrogated verses of the Koran. Watt in Bell’s introduction to the Koran (1970) writes of the doctrine of abrogation, ‘The idea underlying the doctrine is that certain commands to the Muslims were only of temporary application, and that when circumstances changed they were abrogated or replaced by others’. An example is provided by the stages through which the drinking of wine was prohibited – Suras 16:67, 2:219, and 5:90. Wine was apparently first regarded as permitted, then as an evil which had to be tolerated, and finally it was prohibited”. Bell was the Oxford scholar who wrote a path-breaking book on dating the Suras of the Koran. I believe that it has not been established which of the Suras was the final one about drinking wine.

(To be continued)

Joint Statement between Malaysia & SL on the occation of the visit to Mlaysia by President SL

(Lanka-e-News -16.Dec.2016, 11.00PM) At the invitation of the Honourable Dato' Sri Mohd Najib Tun Abdul Razak, Prime Minister of Malaysia, His Excellency Maithripala Sirisena, President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka undertook an Official Visit to Malaysia from 15-17 December 2016.

2. Prime Minister Najib Razak and President Maithripala Sirisena held in-depth discussions on all aspects of Malaysia-Sri Lanka relations, and exchanged views on regional and international issues of common concern. The bilateral discussion between the two leaders was held in a warm and cordial atmosphere.

3. Both leaders, while expressing satisfaction with the progress made over the years, reaffirmed their determination to take the bilateral relations between the two countries to the higher levels by exploring new areas of cooperation including in the political, trade and investment, education, tourism, human resource, training and cultural relations as well as people-to-people contact.

4. Both leaders recognised the need to engage at the highest level towards further enhancement of bilateral relations between the two countries. The two sides agreed that every effort will be made to encourage and promote exchanges between Government officials and leaders of private sector with a view to further expand the relations at official and private sector levels.

5. President Maithripala Sirisena apprised Prime Minister Najib Razak of the current status of the national reconciliation process, constitutional reform and economic development strategies undertaken by the National Unity Government of Sri Lanka. Prime Minister Najib Razak welcomed and appreciated the commitment of the National Unity Government of Sri Lanka to good governance and reconciliation and expressed the support of the Government of Malaysia for Sri Lanka’s efforts in this regard.

6. The two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to further strengthen bilateral trade and investment cooperation, and to deepen their economic engagement for mutual benefits. President Maithripala Sirisena assured that the Malaysian investors would enjoy a conducive investment climate in Sri Lanka, and invited those Malaysian investors to pro-actively look at the attractive investment opportunities in Sri Lanka. Both leaders welcomed the significant interest shown by Malaysian companies to partake in the business opportunities provided by Sri Lanka.

7. In promoting trade, Malaysia and Sri Lanka agreed to explore the possibility of initiating the Malaysia-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

8. Both sides reaffirmed their desire to promote greater opportunities for students to pursue their higher studies in each other's country. The two leaders also acknowledged the increasing two-way tourist movement and recalled the close cultural affinity of the peoples of the two countries, including the presence of a large Sri Lankan community in Malaysia, which is a positive factor in fostering and sustaining current and future linkages to imbue greater dynamism to the friendly relations between Malaysia and Sri Lanka.

9. Noting that the two countries maintain a common understanding on a number of important regional and international issues, both sides expressed satisfaction with their close and active engagement in regional and international affairs, and recognized each other’s responsibility in the promotion of peace, development and security of the region, and beyond, based on a convergence of political and socio-economic interests and aspirations.

10. Both leaders were unanimous in their rejection of violent extremism, and in expressing their strong condemnation of terrorism in all its forms and manifestation, and called upon all States to reject terrorism and bring perpetrators of terrorism to justice. Both sides agreed to continue to sharing information and best practices with a view to address the challenges posed by terrorism, and other traditional and non-traditional threats.

11. Both sides underscored the need to adhere to the main objectives and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and norms of International Law based on trust, equality, and cooperation. The two leaders emphasized the need for concerted efforts to build confidence and mutual understanding and strengthen stability regionally and internationally. The two leaders agreed that international issues should be resolved through peaceful dialogue and diplomatic means.

12. Malaysia would continue to promote the moderation agenda and mediation approach, promote the enhancement of UN peacekeeping operations, support peace building in countries emerging from conflicts and encourage continued discussion on the comprehensive reform of the United Nations Security Council.

13. Both leaders witnessed the signing of five Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) namely the MoU on Tourism Related Activities, MoU on Cooperation in The Field of Youth Development, MoU on the Recruitment, Employment and Repatriation of Workers and MoU in the Field of Culture, Arts and Heritage and MoU between the Sri Lanka Council For Agricultural Research Policy (SLCARP) and Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI) on Scientific Research and Technical Cooperation.

14. President Maithripala Sirisena expressed his deep appreciation for the warm reception and generous hospitality extended to him and his delegation during the visit and invited Prime Minister Najib Razak to visit Sri Lanka at a mutually convenient date. Prime Minister Najib Razak accepted the invitation with pleasure.

16 December 2016
Kuala Lumpur

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by (2016-12-16 19:04:29)

Journalists in Colombo demand legal action against Navy Chief – VIDEO

ournalists and media workers from various parts of Sri Lanka Thursday staged a demonstration in Colombo, demanding legal action against the Navy commander for assaulting a fellow journalist at the Hambantota Mahinda Rajapaksa Port last week.

The protest took place opposite Colombo Fort railway station.

December 15, 2016

The protestors holding banners and chanting slogans against the attack, demanded the government to take legal action against the Navy Commander Vice Admiral Ravindra Wijegunaratne for brutally assaulting a provincial camera journalist while covering the workers’ strike at the Port.

A freelance provincial journalist, Roshan Dilip Kumara, was among nine people injured when the Navy team attacked the Port workers on strike while trying to get two foreign container vessels released on Saturday (Dec 10).

Vice Admiral Wijegunaratne in civvies was seen physically assaulting the journalist and verbally abusing the workers on the International Human Rights Day. The attack has been widely condemned by the media activists, despite the government’s effort to justify the assault on the journalist.

Taking part in the rally, Dilip Kumara said he has lodged a complaint with the Hambantota Assistant Superintendent of Police for his future protection and denied reports that he withdrew it.

“I do not have any personal problem with the Navy Commander, but there has to be an investigation because he has attacked a journalist. The journalist from across the country are protesting here demanding an investigation,” Dilip Kumara said.

“I haven’t received any threat from anybody,” he said.

Dharmasiri Lankapeli, the head of Federation of Media Employees Trade Union (FMETU) said that the attack on the journalist has taken place amid claims by the government that it has got the right to information bill passed in passed in parliament

“It is under these conditions that Roshan Dilip Kumara went to Hambantota Port to report the workers’ strike. Roshan was brutally assaulted when he doing his duties as a journalist,” he said.

Lankapeli slammed the government for not investigating the incident that was widely reported.

“The government has not launched an investigation into it, while some are blaming Roshan for not following ethics of journalism. Roshan has not violated any ethics. He was only covering the navy’s attempt to evict the workers on strike,” he said.

The journalist who filmed Roshan being assaulted by the Navy Chief vehemently condemned the attack and demanded the government to carry out an impartial investigation.

“I am the who filmed when the Navy Commander brutally assaulted our fellow journalist. There were few other journalist at the scene covering the incident and they were also threatened by the navy. This is not what we expect from this ‘Yaha Palanaya’ (good governance),” Rahul Samantha Hettiarachchi, the head of Southern Province Professional Journalists Association told reporters at the protest.

He recalled how the President referred to journalists as people of his clan.

“Is the President going sit and watch the Navy Commander assaulting one from his clan? We urge the President to take disciplinary and legal action against the Navy Commander,” he said.

Head of Government Information Department Dr. Ranga Kalansooriya in a statement said on Sunday that the journalist had come under attack because of the failure on his part to practice basic ethics of journalism when covering sensitive situations.

Post Mortem: The ‘ethics’ of assault

Featured image courtesy Rifthi Ali

GROUNDVIEWS on 12/16/2016

Media ethics became the focal point of discussion at a ‘post-mortem’ on a recent incident involving the Navy Commander assaulting journalist Roshan Gunasekera as he covered the Navy action to open the Magampura (Hambantota) port, which had been blocked by protesting port workers.

At a discussion organised by the Young Journalists’ Association at the Government Information Department on December 15, Director General Ranga Kalansooriya began by regretting the statement he had made as he felt it “could have been misunderstood“.

Yet, while he condemned the attack, Kalansooriya spent most of his time giving an impromptu presentation on media ethics. In particular, he said that the journalist concerned had “crossed the line” and had gone too close to the protesters. “This is a hostile situation… a sensitive situation involving conflict,” he said, adding that there was a need for training on conflict reporting.

This position was rejected by most of the journalists present, including Convenor of the Media Movement for Democracy Chandana Sirimalwatte, who asked why Kalansooriya had glossed over the government’s own culpability in rushing to accuse the journalist of violating ethics.

“Before talking about media ethics we want to ask government what action it has taken with regard to the journalists who were killed under the previous regime,” he added.

Convenor of the Free Media Movement Seetha Ranjanee also condemned the incident.

Deputy Mass Media Minister Karunarathna Paranavithana also condemned the Navy Commander’s actions, adding he “should have thought about the ‘people’s mandate’ this government had been elected under”.

He said that the Commander had a duty to be at the Port, as he was the authority in dealing with issues pertaining to ports and shipping. “We could not have used the police for this,” he said.

While the government representatives made cosmetic statements of condemnation, much of the discussion focused around media ethics. Kalansooriya in particular spent much of the time allotted to him elaborating on various incidents where journalists had disregarded warnings not to get too close to a conflict-ridden area, and had paid the price with their lives.

This was not accepted by many of the journalists gathered. At one point, Kalansooriya, listening to a journalist expounding on a point, simply said, “You have a perception problem”.

And while the post-mortem began with Kalansooriya saying he wanted to foster a culture of discussion and participation with different stakeholders, it was worrying that there appeared to have been no consensus reached. All the more worrying as the Government Information Department has called for public consultations with a view to “introducing an independent oversight mechanism to foster professional standards, with mandatory powers over media outlets” particularly as the undertone to Kalansooriya’s comments appeared to be that, should a journalist violate ethical considerations (which is certainly to be condemned) then they somehow ‘deserved’ to be dealt with violently.

However, there was no clearer statement than Prime Minister Wickremesinghe’s reaction:

After being elected on a platform which specifically spoke of protecting and promoting media freedom, this turnaround is sobering, although perhaps unsurprising.

Below is a recording from the event, beginning from Kalansooriya’s comments.