Prisoners rights group rejects Thalatha’s committee

RUWAN LAKNATH JAYAKODY- JAN 18 2019

The Committee for Protecting the Rights of Prisoners (CPRP) in a letter written to Minister of Justice and Prison Reforms Thalatha Atukorale yesterday (17) regarding a committee being appointed to probe the assault of prisoners at the Angunakolapelessa Prison on 22 November 2018, said that no justice could be expected for the victims owing to the presence of Prisons Department officers in the said committee's Membership.

The letter was signed by CPRP Chairman, Attorney-At-Law (AAL) Senaka Perera and CPRP Secretary Sudesh Nandimal Silva.

Atukorale on 16 January instructed the Prisons Commissioner General to appoint a three-member committee to provide a report regarding the incident prior to 21 January, adding that further action would be taken based on the report. Prisons Commissioner (Administration/Intelligence and Security Divisions), H.M.T.N. Upuldeniya is heading the committee. The other members of the committee include a Prisons Department officer and a representative of the Ministry of Justice and Prison Reforms.

The CPRP claimed that the Department was a respondent party in the matter.
"This would only be a waste of money and time. Prisons Media Spokesman Upuldeniya has on several previous occasions told the media that no torture, cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment or punishment takes places against detainees within prisons. This is a presumption and if a person holds such a preconceived notion we cannot expect impartiality and independent judgment from him.

Therefore, since it is an accepted principle of natural law that one cannot sit in judgment of one's own case we oppose this appointed committee. Competent persons such as retired High Court Judges should be appointed to mete out justice to the victims and take legal action against the respondents."
Meanwhile, Southern Province Governor Rajith Keerthi Tennakoon also writing to AAL Atukorale and the media requested details regarding the said incident and also called upon the public to assist in identifying those responsible for the said assault.

The Committee for Protecting the Rights of Prisoners (CPRP) in a letter written to Minister of Justice and Prison Reforms Thalatha Atukorale yesterday (17) regarding a committee being appointed to probe the assault of prisoners at the Angunakolapelessa Prison on 22 November 2018, said that no justice could be expected for the victims owing to the presence of Prisons Department officers in the said committee's Membership.

The letter was signed by CPRP Chairman, Attorney-At-Law (AAL) Senaka Perera and CPRP Secretary Sudesh Nandimal Silva.

Atukorale on 16 January instructed the Prisons Commissioner General to appoint a three-member committee to provide a report regarding the incident prior to 21 January, adding that further action would be taken based on the report. Prisons Commissioner (Administration/Intelligence and Security Divisions), H.M.T.N. Upuldeniya is heading the committee. The other members of the committee include a Prisons Department officer and a representative of the Ministry of Justice and Prison Reforms.

The CPRP claimed that the Department was a respondent party in the matter.

"This would only be a waste of money and time. Prisons Media Spokesman Upuldeniya has on several previous occasions told the media that no torture, cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment or punishment takes places against detainees within prisons. This is a presumption and if a person holds such a preconceived notion we cannot expect impartiality and independent judgment from him.

Therefore, since it is an accepted principle of natural law that one cannot sit in judgment of one's own case we oppose this appointed committee. Competent persons such as retired High Court Judges should be appointed to mete out justice to the victims and take legal action against the respondents."
Meanwhile, Southern Province Governor Rajith Keerthi Tennakoon also writing to AAL Atukorale and the media requested details regarding the said incident and also called upon the public to assist in identifying those responsible for the said assault.

Muslim extremism in Sri Lanka: Some reflections

by A Sri Lankan-Jan 26, 2019

Jan 26, 2019

I would like to pen down a few sentences about these incidents. I will be objective on this issue. I know well many people will try to make politics out of it. Even Donald Trump would make politics out of these incidents that took place in some remote villages in Sri Lanka. I do not justify what these radicals have done. I fully abhor and detest what they have done.

Why did these radicals do this? Who radicalise them? What are the interior motives of those who radicalised these young people? Are there any conspiracy theories behind this radicalization? Did someone do this to tarnish good name of Muslim community in Sri Lanka? Are there any political hands behind this incident? Why did they do this right now? Did some groups do this to discredit some other groups? Likewise, so many questions come into my mind about this incident? It is said Muslim community in Sri Lanka is a peaceful community and yet, how and why did this group emerge in Sri Lanka? Personally, I believe this is a set up some people in Sri Lanka to discredit Muslim community or to harm Muslim community in the name of so-called war on terror.

          It would be wrong to generalise this issue. Never in 1000 years of Muslim history in Sri Lanka any Muslim group wanted to harm any Buddhist statue. Even when Taliban vandalised some of old statutes in Afghanistan Sri Lankan Muslims condemned it so, it would be wrong to say that this is done with the approval of any Muslim group or any Islamic groups in Sri Lanka. I would like to point out some political dimension of so-called war on terror. Today, everything has been politicised and everything is seen from political perspective. The terms such as terrorism, radicalism, Islamophobia have been used subjectively. War on terror has killed millions of innocents. Poor people in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan were being killed in the name of war on terror. The term terrorism has not yet, been defined even by UN. Because, this term is a subjective term. It has been used by different people in different meanings. Politicians have used this term to kill their opponents. Look what takes place in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan in the name of terrorism how many innocent people have been killed. In Burma, in the name of terrorism one Million innocent Muslims were chased out. Unfortunately, by so called Buddhist country. It is unfortunate to see that Buddhism has been used by these radicals to kill innocent people in Burma. We need to read Sri Lankan incidents in this wider context. No Muslim group will dare to do this. I wonder if all these incidents have been done deliberately by some people with some hidden agenda to tarnish a good name of Muslim community in Sri Lanka. I wonder if some political elements in Sri Lanka too try to use religion to gain some political mileages.

          It is a duty of Muslim community to identify this group and find out who did this and why did they do it? I do not blame these young boys. But I blame those who indoctrinate them and those who brain washed them. Almost all Islamic groups in Sri Lanka know well that we are living as a second minority community in Sri Lanka. We all know our limits and limitations. No sound person will dare to make such attacks on Buddhist statues. No sound person will dare to create a tension between Muslim and Sinhalese community in Sri Lanka? No sound person will dare to anger the majority community in Sri Lanka in this way of damaging their sacred places. So, all what this small group of people have done is wrong. No religion would agree with what they have done. Yet, I doubt that anyone would have done it without any external support.

        All Islamic groups have been working peacefully in Sri Lanka. Most of them are peaceful people.  Many of them are promoting peace and community harmony. Most of them are engaged in charitable works. Most of them support and help good humanitarian works. |For Instance, Sri Lankan Jamathe Islame has been contributing for many humanitarian projects and charitable works. It has done so many medical camps, eye clinics, blood donation clinics, charitable projects. It is reported JVP and Jamathe-Islame have done more charitable and community welfare projects than many other political parties. It is reported that JVP and JI has done more social welfare works during and after Tsunami than any other groups. There is no doubt these welfare organizations and Islamic groups do a lot of good works and yet, some extremism and radicalism intrude into minds of some young people in all groups. Jamath has been calling people into moderation in all their actions and faith. They have been calling people for moral and ethical development They have been educating youth to devote time and energy for nation building process. They have been promoting peace and social harmony among communities. They have been working with many Sinhalese religious leaders to promote peace and harmony in Sri Lanka.

    I think that these youths are innocent. but they may have been indoctrinated. They have been brain washed by radical ideologies? How on earth do these radicals pile up arms in a coconut garden? What a stupid thing is this? Have not they seen what happened to the ruthless groups such as ISIS, Taliban and LTTE? It does not make any sense to do such a thing in Sri Lanka? It is beyond any human logics and rationalism to do this. Why did they do this? It has been puzzling me since Mawanella incident? It has been shocking me why did they do it? we have been living with Sinhalese community peacefully for the last one thousand year. Yet, no sound Muslim dared to do this? Why did these radicals do this? Yet, I’m still in a shock to accept that this has been done by these youth without any external support. Did they do this for money? Did they do this for politics? Did they do this for any other reason? It is very much clear that Islam promote pluralism and yet, why did they do this? There is no completion in Islam. All Islamic groups know this basic fact. So, I cannot image that these youths have done this.

                  Islam teaches moderation in our faith, behaviours and actions. We should not follow any extreme form of faith and rituals. 99.9% of Sri Lankan Muslims are moderate people in their faith and actions. They do not fellow any extreme form of Islam at all. Yet, extreme form of Islam was imported to Sri Lanka via some ultra-radical Salafi groups and even many of them today are following moderate path of Islam? I think that Sri Lankan intelligence services are cleave enough to investigate this incident objectively. Without giving any room to make politics out it. It is an internal issue and there is no connection or affiliation with any foreign groups. So, they must treat this incident as a local matter. I think that these radicals must be rehabilitated like any other groups. To teach a moderate form of Islam in our schools we must have a cohesive and comprehensive syllabus in RE to meet local needs of our communities in Sri Lanka. I would argue a comparative religious education at all levels is a must today in Sri Lanka. Teach our children about all 4 religions so that they will know about others and live in peace.  I notice that due to misunderstanding we create a lot of problems among people of different faiths. To avoid this type of religious conflict we must teach all children 4 religions in Sri Lanka. Will politicians do this? Will policy makers in education listen to this?

“Youth as a Smart Investment for a Healthy Nation”

College of Community Physicians lights up the pathway:

Usha Perera-Saturday, January 26, 2019

“A school prefect in his A/Levels (maths stream) who got into a brawl with a Grade 9 student after the latter took umbrage at being disciplined by a senior succumbed to his injuries”.
“19-year-old Rasindu Gimhana was stabbed to death while on his way to a tuition class. The tragedy took place at Alevella Street in Matara. The 17-year-old student who stabbed him had claimed that Rasindu’s brother has had an argument with his girlfriend”.

“22-year-old Shiromi Priyadarshani was strangled to death by her boyfriend following a heated argument between the duo over a clandestine affair the girl had. Her body was found near Sumeda Tank in Magandanamulla, Monaragala”

These were some of news items that appeared in popular newspapers recently.
Violence among youth has been a social issue in Sri Lanka that has emerged over the recent past. The advent of technology, accessibility to violence and triggers in the immediate environment are possible causative factors.

But at the same time it is vital to realize that youth are the best resources a country possesses at any given time and advocating to the youth towards positive development is the best way towards smart investments of a Nation.

Young persons are usually wonderfully resilient, adaptable, curious, trustworthy, creative and resourceful. When social setting consistently provide negative messages about abilities and a limited range of desirable life options, it leads the youth to make poor choices regarding the use of their time and resources ending up in crime and violence, substance abuse, negative attitudes and poor choices leaving them with long term negative effects. But when young people are mobilized into development and policy making processes, research has demonstrated that they tend to become increasingly responsible and develop decision-making skills and positive feelings about their changing bodies while becoming more independent and begin to plan and think about the future and confident feelings about their identity.

Taking up the challenge of making a difference among the youth, The College of Community Physicians of Sri Lanka, being the foremost professional body of the Public Health Practitioners in the country, adopted the theme, “Shaping a healthy future, youth as a smart investment” for their activities between the year 2018 – 2019 in order to work through specific programmes towards empowering the youth in our country.

Office-bearers of the College Dr. Janaki Vidanapathirana Dr. Anuji Gamage and Dr. Asiri Hewamalege, explained facts regarding the rationale of their theme for the year.
Who is a “young person” according to international classification?

The United Nations, for statistical purposes, defines ‘young person’, those whom are between the ages of 15 and 24 years, without prejudice to other definitions by Member States.

World Health Organization defines young people as between 10 and 24 years of age, and adolescents as between 10 and 19 years of age. The National Youth policy in Sri Lanka defines youth as 15-24 years of age (Ministry of Youth Affairs and Skills Development 2014).

“For the purpose of discussion for this article let’s consider a person to be a “young person” with the age as 10 to 24 years to reflect on the concepts of adolescence and youth”, says Dr. Vidanapathirana.

Why are they important?

“currently young people are the largest in history at any given time and 90% of them live in developing countries like ours. Therefore it is very important to harness them into correct pathways as the future of the world will depend on their behaviour as adults. As young people they face many transitions such as change of roles, high educational demands and physical and psychological changes. Brain development of a young person continues into the beginning of the third decade of life. The reorganisation of brain during this period makes it particularly susceptible to environmental influences, both positive and negative. As youth enter this critical age and encounter resources and vulnerabilities, which are biological such genetics, epigenetics, natural endowments and environmental such as national and local policies, as well as community, school, workplace, peers, neighbourhood, and family influences, their lives are shaped by the interrelationships of these factors.

Hence this window period during person’s life is an important milestone for positive interventions that would shape attitudes and the mindset of these young people. In addition as youth’s transition to adulthood they need to have well developed self-esteem and self-efficacy skills including life skills to gear them to manage challenges faced at education and employment settings, as well as relationships with friends and family member. Failure to meet the needs of a young person can have serious short as well as long-term implications for the individual and society at large”, explains the three community physicians.

Why should resources of a country be spent on youth?

“Because It has a high return on investment”, says Dr. Vidanapathirana.

Towards Free Education: From the Morgan Report

 2019-01-26

The third in a series of essays delving into the problems of our education system Both Marx and Engels realised the value of free education. They were aware of the role played by schools in the perpetuation of class hierarchies in a given society. To this end, in the Communist Manifesto, they set down as one of 10 aims the saving of education from the ruling class. It was only natural that the kind of education they had in mind was very different from the kind that existed in Europe then: they envisioned a system based on three broad layers: the mental, the bodily, and the technological. The objective of schools would be “the conversion of social reason into social force”, or the emancipation of the working class from the “crushing effects” of the capitalist system, which had made them “too ignorant to understand the true nature of... the normal conditions of human development.”   

Marx and Engels, and the Soviets, were thus far ahead when it came to education reforms. Unfortunately for us, throughout colonial rule officials enacted legislation which, instead of democratising the system, solidified the class structures embedded therein

The Soviets were the first to adopt, with necessary amendments, the Marxist system. The first step was the separation of Church from State. Then in 1918, the State issued the Uniform Labour School Regulations, which brought all the schools under the so-called Commissariat for Education.

Lunacharsky, the first People’s Commissar, called for teachers to “build a new school of people” and a “new people’s school” in Russia. Four years later, in The ABC of Communism, Bukharin and Preobrazhensky pointed out why bourgeois society had not conceived a democratic system of schools, and here they identified the classist streak that had defined education, even “education for the masses”, in the Western/European/Anglo-Saxon bourgeois system, and had inspired workers with nothing more than respect for the capitalist regime.   

The case of English public schools provides strong evidence for this. One of the first public schools was founded by William of Wykeham in 1382: Winchester College. It was established as a monastic institution in the aftermath of the Black Plague. Initially William had envisioned it to be “an agent of social mobility” that could give children of poor backgrounds a rigorous education he himself had not enjoyed. To this end, in the College Charter he decreed that 70 poor scholars would be educated and boarded at his school for free. The Charter lamented the poverty of the many when it stated that it proposed “to help and bestow our charity to help” needy scholars.   

There were two problems though: the definition of poverty and how many of those who fitted the description of “poor and needy” were admitted. The College statutes stated that a scholar could not enter Winchester unless he came from a family earning an income of, when adjusted for inflation, around £ 4,000 a year. As David Turner in his extensive work The Old Boys: The Decline and Rise of the Public School notes, this “was more than the earnings of many clergymen” in the area, although he does admit that it “would have excluded genuinely wealthy families.”   

That was just one problem. The other problem was more pronounced. From the beginning, Winchester had “attracted families far and above the ‘poor and needy’”, owing to the fact that it generated “an endless stream of curious visitors ranging from Oxford academics to the Duke of Brittany.”   

Private education in the colonial era meant education in missionary schools. Not unlike the mushrooming second rate international schools of today these often imparted an inferior education preoccupied with conversion and Westernisation

Because of the need for funds, Wykeham accommodated the rich and the powerful by way of a clause which stated that “we allow... sons of noble and influential persons, special friends of the said College... to be instructed and informed in grammar with the same College.” This was to be in addition to the scheme for poor scholars, yet by 1412, “there were as many as a hundred” of the rich scholars, which meant that for most of the school’s history they “would outnumber the scholars.”   

Marx and Engels, and the Soviets, were thus far ahead when it came to education reforms. Unfortunately for us, throughout colonial rule officials enacted legislation which, instead of democratising the system, solidified the class structures embedded therein. That is why there was almost always a contradiction between a stated aim of education for all and the actual practice of superior education for a few: it was as though Wykeham had come to British Ceylon.   

Swarna Jayaweera pointed this out when she observed that colonial administrators were “more often conditioned by the educational practices of the metropolitan country than by the local circumstances in which their policies operated.” Education policies were thus not responsive to the needs of the country; nowhere was this more apparent than in the period from 1870 to 1920, from the time of the Morgan Committee Report to the enactment of Education Ordinance No. 1 of 1920.   

Despite the fact that education in Ceylon was largely a case of grafting a system that could not be any more alien to our economy, the State was not really bothered with emulating the public school model in every respect: as Jayaweera notes, educational administration was one of the few areas “which bore little resemblance to that of its prototype.” What of private education, then?   

Private education in the colonial era meant education in missionary schools. Not unlike the mushrooming second rate international schools of today these often imparted an inferior education preoccupied with conversion and Westernisation. This trend was unchecked, and by the last quarter of the 19th century there was a “rapid expansion of English education” where schools competed with each other by lowering fees, cutting back on teacher salaries, and resorting to malpractices in order to “obtain a higher grant than they were in fact entitled to” (Wanasinghe 1968). The latter point was important, because through the Morgan Report the rules of religious instruction in schools assisted by the State were revoked “so as to leave all religious bodies free to teach religion as they pleased” (ibid). It was laissez-faire all the way.   

In the early period of British colonial rule there was a tussle between the authorities and missionary interests. It was only with the enactment of the Colebrooke-Cameron reforms that a real need was felt for a schools scheme which could educate a select few to staff the native civil administration. In later years, owing to the need to achieve this aim, the attitude of resentment towards missionary interests eroded to an attitude of indifference if not cooperation: the link between the State and the missionaries was apparent by 1896 when, of eight officials appointed to the Board of Education, three were clergymen representing several denominational interests and only one, and a layman at that, was explicitly representative of Buddhist interests.   

The Morgan Report published its recommendations in 1869. It signaled an end of an era: from English education the State concentrated on vernacular education. But as was typical of colonial policy, this was dubiously interpreted; by the time of the coffee crash, the call of the day had turned to retrenchment. Naturally this meant the pruning of finances and the scaling down of expenditure on village schools. But there was a more insidious motive behind the policy of retrenchment, as was articulated by the then Director of Public Instruction, H. W. Green:   

“It is false kindness to poor scholars in general in this country to give free or nearly free English education indiscriminately as it creates an unsettled class of aspiring youths for whom there is no employment to be found in the Colony.”   

In the end, retrenchment became “the keynote of the eighties”, as Jayaweera once put it. With a limited budget and an imminent recession, the government paid no attention to the reform proposals envisioned barely a decade back, and in the end, after much debate (a cess was proposed, then hastily retracted), the State resorted to two acts of legislation which predated the Morgan Report: the Municipal Ordinance 17 of 1865 and the Local Board Ordinance 7 of 1866. With these the State had tried to revive the system of gamsabhawas that had been neglected until then, and with them it was yet again trying to implant a “prototype” from England: in this instance, the Schools Boards that had been created in the home country in 1870.   

But then the revival of local government institutions to meet increasing outlays on education was, as will be seen next week, not a total success. There was one problem: missionary education and grants to missionary schools. As Jayaweera puts it, by this time “nine-tenths of government expenditure on education” was allocated for grants. Given this, it was only natural that an entrenched rent-seeking schools system would oppose any move that could undermine their dominance over education.   

UDAKDEV1@GMAIL.COM     

Of Dil-scoops, Blake’s 7 and drug busts

 SIEG HEIL? From an under-siege president desperate to gain a moral mandate to a nation-state whose ‘national-socialism’ ranges from drugs to child sex abuse, Sri Lanka has an image militating against that Lonely Planet rose-tint of the prettiest girl on the beach! For our country to extract itself from the clutches of rapists and pushers in high places, the highest in the land will have to do more than semi-Nazi salutes at half-mast… They’ll have to walk the talk… towards reform and reprieve, by example as well as law and order – not law by order (prosecuting selectively) or realpolitik-driven social movements that privilege one’s own precarious position at the expense of one’s political opposition while safeguarding one’s supporters or friends

Friday, 25 January 2019 


In mid-2018, national cricketer and erstwhile captain Tillakaratne Dilshan sang the praises of President Maithripala Sirisena for taking a certain executive decision. That was to implement the death penalty – customarily commuted to life imprisonment – for drug traffickers, widely considered to be the bane of Sri Lankan society. The inventor of the innovative Dil-scoop waxed eloquent on extending the hangman’s noose to other nefarious activities for which our island-nation has attracted notoriety of late. He is reported to have said at the time: “Not only for drugs; it should be implemented for child abuse and rape cases also!” Howzaat?

Be that sportsman’s hanging judge mentality as it may, one wonders how he would feel today – in early 2019 – at his chief executive’s newfound approach to the war on drugs in our blessed isle. Our head of state, perhaps in another fit of pique for which is he becoming justifiably famous, hymned paeans to the modus operandi adopted by his hero, President Duterte of the Philippines. That latter worthy’s attitude has been more out of vigilante movies like Batman than a balanced sense of justice befitting a country’s leader. It entails the type of social justice favoured by armchair sociopaths and folks on the psychotic fringe.

Et tu, Duterte!

A suspension of the rule of law and order, and the imposition of rule by law and outrage against antisocial crimes, has been the norm there. The President of the Philippines came into power in mid-2016 after promising to ‘neutralise’ the drug menace in his country. That programme has seen the Filipino police and members of the public join hands to eliminate suspected criminals especially drug addicts.

The Philippines’ war on drugs – with its estimated three million addicts (1.8 mil in 2015 and on the rise) at the time Duterte entered the scene contra his narco-state – has pros and cons, if looked at objectively (which is hard to do when over 50 street children were killed in its first year). Today, Davao City is among the safest places thanks to Duterte’s death squads, which ruthlessly killed drug users, pushers and other petty criminals. That has not served to reduce its extreme incidence of murder and rape. China, Japan and the US have admitted an albeit grudging respect for the policy. Human-rights watchdogs have barked their heads off at the 12,000-plus death toll so far (the state admits to some 4,200 of these while the political opposition cites a figure as high as 20,000).

There has been a widespread local and international outcry against the movement, despite its lawful potential to rid a nation of awful drug lords in high and drug pushers in low dives. Much of the fuss has been about the alleged abuses whereby law-enforcement officials have been accused of planting contraband – both drugs and guns – and routinely executing unarmed suspects in police custody. And even though systematic extrajudicial executions are nothing new to banana republics, the rest of the Philippines is not exactly a savage place – until President ‘Justice League’ Duterte, at least.


To be fair by Maithri, he is not quite the manic berserker that the man in Manila may seem to be. Our man in Colombo is more of a mousy coup plotter than a coldly smiling executive assassin. Thus his backtracking on the public affirmation of his Filipino counterpart’s MO vis-à-vis the drug war. Of course, the cynics have questioned whether it was prudence on the part of the president – even as an afterthought in the wake of shooting his mouth off again – or cold, calculating practicality. After all, how many noble provincial councillors, honourable members of parliament or esteemed cabinet rankers would Sirisena have to shoot to put his money where his mouth had been?

Ars longa, vita brevis

I suspect life might imitate art. My mind goes back to a British TV series of which I was a fan then: Blake’s 7. One particular episode remains pertinent as regards our war on drugs. That eponymous hero, a political agitator against a corrupt military dictatorship, the Federation, recruits a ragtag motley crew of criminals to rebel against galactic oppression.

Blake seeks to enlist the help of the notorious Terra Nostra – a systematic cartel dealing in general crime and terror but specialising in mind-numbing drugs – to wage a war on tyranny. While his initial efforts to persuade the Terra Nostra to join forces with him fails, Blake persists in his efforts to undermine the administration’s power in the outer planets using elements of the criminal underworld who might be willing to join the rebellion.

En route to that goal, the rebel leader discovers a dark secret that could blow the lid off the oppressive civilian administration. A planet on which the Terra Nostra’s source of power is located is discovered to be heavily guarded – by none other than Federation troops! The President of the Terran Administration oversees the production and distribution of Shadow, the narcotic that keeps billions of souls in abject slavery!

As one character remarks, it’s a subversive strategy: to control people at both ends of the power spectrum using a single power source. Law and order as well as lawlessness are both regulated from the same origin: the despotic political regime that operates simultaneously above and below the law.

In an article titled ‘A shadow falls over a drugged republic?’ (Daily FT, 26 July 2018), I explored the issue in some detail. So I won’t draw the lines again. But is it clear that many commentators are increasingly concerned about both the problem and its putative solutions. This on top of the alarming nexus between law and order and the ranks of criminality in high places.

For instance, a civil libertarian recently tweeted: “Ernest Gellner describes religious movements and political systems/actors latching on to each other as the symbiosis of ‘thugs’ and ‘legitimators’. Place this in the #lka context and you can see parallels, and perhaps even the interchangeability of roles #religion #politics.”

Shadow over the republic 

She no doubt had in mind the political superculture in Sri Lanka. Whereby scurrilous party leaders can sedulously prevail on a sitting president to free troublesome monks and to release notorious prisoners. And maybe convicted drug smugglers cum public enemies by dint of murder and open warfare in the name of internecine drug mafia battles. Even a president caught between the rock of realpolitik and the hard place of Duterte worship would be hard-pressed to decide what to do.

Then again, there was the social media activist who maintained steadfastly that if the president was serious about his war on drugs, he’d have to lock up half of his inner circle of cupboard-chums (you know who, no) and not let the other half out of the lower circles of hell (you know where, right).

So however the war on drugs proceeds in the days ahead, with one eye on elections and the main chance growing near, by virtue of positioning oneself as the saviour of a once-righteous society, a few things are clear as a line of crack on a glass table. There is a distressing if not easily demonstrable connection between the penalising of drug traffickers and the power behind the throne of the shadow mafia pulling the strings.

However passionate the highest officials in the land may seem in public to rid us of this insidious threat, they might do well to examine in private their motives for doing so – or appearing to want to. Whatever Duterte may do, our democracy cannot afford another descent into an extrajudicial inferno of vigilante justice. Where political dissidents are harassed or killed in the name of vendettas against personal enemies while useful or powerful – or both types of – friends roam free.

It’s not cricket – whatever Dilshan may say. It’s Blake’s 7 all over again, except no would dare say the president is casting a shadow over the drug mafia in any way other than cracking down on it. With that said, let’s essay a more reasoned and reasonable resolution to the most pressing problem of our time. Not drugs or child abuse or rape. But the nexus between law and order and crime. And the hypocrisy that maintains the status quo so that whitened sepulchres can preach the gospel of social justice while practising realpolitik as if it were a sub legit joint.


(Journalist | Editor-at-large of LMD | Writer #SpeakingTruthToPower)

Israel kills Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza

Maureen Clare Murphy Rights and Accountability 23 January 2019

Israeli forces have killed two Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip on this week.

Soldiers shot and killed a man identified as Muhammad Fawzi Adwi, 36, at Huwwara checkpoint near Nablus in the northern West Bank on Monday.

The Israeli military claimed that the man had attempted to stab a soldier before he was shot dead. No Israeli soldiers were injured during the incident, as in many such past cases in which an alleged Palestinian attacker was killed.

The human rights group B’Tselem recently reiterated its condemnation of Israel’s “reckless open-fire policy” which “includes, among other things, shooting to kill incidents defined as ‘attacks.’”

Last year, Israeli forces and armed civilians killed 15 Palestinian perpetrators or alleged perpetrators of attacks against Israelis in the West Bank.

Adwi is the first Palestinian fatality at the hands of the Israeli military in the West Bank so far this year.

Mahmoud al-Abed al-Nabahin, 24, killed by artillery fire on Tuesday, is the third fatality so far this year in Gaza.

A photo of al-Nabahin was published by Palestinian media after his death:

View image on Twitter

وكالة صفا

✔@SafaPs

#صورة | الشهيد محمود العبد النباهين (24 عاما) من كتائب القسام الذي ارتقى في القصف الإسرائيلي لنقطة رصد للمقاومة شرق مخيم البريج وسط قطاع غزة

28

1:48 PM - Jan 22, 2019

Al-Nabahin died when Israeli forces targeted an observation post operated by Hamas’ military wing. Four others were injured, one critically.

Video emerged on Tuesday that was said to show the deadly strike on the observation post, with Israelis, presumably soldiers, laughing after it is obliterated:

إعلام الاحتلال ينشر فيديو لاستهداف مرصد للمقاومة شرق مخيم البريج وسط قطاع #غزة مساء اليوم مما أدى لارتقاء شهيد وعدد من الإصابات. pic.twitter.com/qIYogwzmFP

— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) 22 January 2019

Israel said it fired on the post in response to Palestinian fire at soldiers near the Gaza-Israel boundary. A soldier was reported to have been lightly injured.

The army also fired at a Hamas position in northern Gaza in response to shots towards soldiers earlier in the day, the military told media.

Gaza hospitals face shut-down

Meanwhile, hospitals in Gaza are rationing services and have suspended basic operations such as “sterilization, diagnostic imaging, cleaning, laundry and catering” as emergency fuel reserves to power backup generators during power cuts are set to run out in a few days, the World Health Organization warned on Monday.

Surgery, lab testing and diagnostic imaging were suspended at Beit Hanoun hospital in northern Gaza this weekend after it ran out of fuel.

The United Nations transferred $1.5 million to fund fuel for generators for essential services such as health, water and sanitation in September last year. That fuel was anticipated to last until November, but was able to stretch out longer after Qatar donated $60 million to fuel Gaza’s sole power plant in October.

The Qatari funding for the power plant greatly increased the number of hours of electricity delivered to Gaza households from only a few hours to up to 16 hours per day, but winter weather has increased demand and reduced availability of electricity to 10-12 hours per day.

Gaza’s health ministry says that 2,000 liters of fuel are needed every hour to power backup generators at medical facilities during electricity cuts, amounting to 300,000 liters per month.

The ministry’s spokesperson said on Tuesday that the fuel crisis has reached “a dangerous juncture.”

A Gaza-based human rights group warned last week that disruption of medical care due to fuel shortages will have “dangerous repercussions” for patients, particularly for 800 kidney patients treated with dialysis machines.

Qatar is due to transfer $15 million to pay the salaries of civil servants in Gaza this week after Israel delayed it.

Mohammed Al-Emadi, the Gulf emirate’s envoy to Gaza, confirmed to Reuters news agency that the payment had been approved by Israel on Friday.

“Emadi said Qatar would next push for a roughly $80 million electricity project that would have it effectively manage the strip’s power supply, buying Israeli electricity in bulk and distributing it across Gaza while collecting payment from Palestinians in return,” Reuters added.

Donor-funded emergency fuel has become a lifeline in Gaza after 11 years of Israeli blockade that has deflated the territory’s economy and sharply increased residents’ dependence on humanitarian aid.

But that aid has slowed to a trickle after Trump administration cuts to bilateral aid to the West Bank and Gaza, as well as the UN agency for Palestine refugees, amounting to half a billion dollars.

It is the latest blow to the post-Oslo accords order in the West Bank and Gaza, 25 years after the peace agreement was signed by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization.

“One-state reality of perpetual occupation”

Nickolay Mladenov, the UN’s Middle East peace envoy, delivered something of a eulogy to the post-Oslo order in his report to the Security Council on Tuesday.

He decried fading hope for “a genuine intra-Palestinian reconciliation” mediated by Egypt and the UN after Hamas authorities summoned dozens of Fatah supporters in Gaza earlier this month. The Palestinian Authority withdrew its personnel from the Rafah crossing with Egypt in response, effectively shutting downthe sole point of exit and entry for the Strip’s two million residents.

Mladenov also noted “an increasing number of Israeli military operations in Areas A and B of the West Bank,” where the Palestinian Authority is meant to have limited autonomy under the Oslo accords.

“In Ramallah, for example, and elsewhere, the almost daily confrontations with Israeli security forces fuel anger and have raised questions among Palestinians as to the viability and relevance of the structures created under the Oslo accords,” the peace process envoy added.

With rampant settlement building, and attempts to apply Israeli law to the West Bank, “raising fears of future annexation,” the prospect for credible final status negotiations towards a two-state solution has dimmed, “only to be replaced by the lack of hope and the growing risk of a one-state reality of perpetual occupation.”

Mladenov warned that “those who believe that the conflict can be managed in perpetuity are wrong,” adding that further deterioration “can only lead to endless conflict and the steady rise of radicalization on all sides.”

‘There is no trust’: Palestinians promise continued unrest over social security law

Palestinians say they have little faith in Palestinian Authority as it seeks to implement controversial social security law

Palestinians have held several protests against social security law in recent months (Reuters)

Akram Al-Waara

Thursday 24 January 2019

BETHLEHEM, Occupied West Bank - Mohammad Ta'amra wakes up at daybreak every morning to see his kids off to school before going to his job as a chef at a restaurant in the West Bank city of Bethlehem.

When he finishes at the restaurant, the 30-year-old heads to the nearby Jacir Palace Hotel for an eight-hour shift as a server.

By the time he gets home it is nearly midnight, and his wife and kids are asleep.

Ta'amra goes through the same routine daily, but at the end of every month it is difficult to be able to make ends meet. "It's barely enough to get by, but I try as hard as I can," he told Middle East Eye.

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Thousands strike in West Bank in protest over PA social security law

About half of Ta'amra’s monthly income of 4,000 shekels (about $1,090) goes to paying off bank loans and rent, while the other half is for food and household items, diapers for his newborn baby and tuition for his two children.

Now, as an employee in the private sector, Ta'amra will be expected to hand over seven percent of his monthly salary to help finance the Palestinian Social Security Corporation (PSSC), a new programme set up by the Palestinian Authority.

Enacted by presidential decree in 2016, the controversial social security law has yet to be implemented amid widespread opposition.

“Almost everyone I know works two, even three or four jobs, and we're barely scraping by," said Ta’amra, speaking to MEE during a break at his hotel job.

“In Palestine we have low wages and high costs of living,” he said. "How can we think about social security when we’re just trying to put food on the table?"

Demands for transparency

Ta’amra’s grievances with the social security law have been echoed for months in protests and strikes across the occupied West Bank.

Though the law has yet to be enforced because of the ongoing protests, with most workers unsure when they will start seeing their salaries reduced, the first day for Palestinian companies with more than 200 employees to register to join the PSSC was last week.

The law sets the national retirement age for both men and women at 60, at which point workers should see their contributions given back to them in the form of a retirement pension.

Ta'amra said the thought of retirement makes him laugh, and that employees have largely been left in the dark about how the system will work.

"Who exactly is controlling the money? Where is it going? How is it being managed?" he asked. "The government hasn’t answered any of those questions. We don't know anything."

In the wake of protests and a general strike last week, Palestinian official Majed el-Helo, who oversees the PA's social security programme, said "major amendments" were introduced to the law to address the concerns of its critics.

He told Palestinian news agency Wafa that social security benefits will extend to the widows of pensioners after their death - no matter how the person dies - and that the PA is working to offer low-interest loans from the programme to companies that meet certain criteria.

The government is not being transparent enough, and if they want to see this law go through, they need to change that

- Mahmoud al-Afranji, Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council

But those promises haven't weakened opposition to the law, as critics continue to accuse the PA of not properly explaining how the system will work.

“The government is not being transparent enough, and if they want to see this law go through, they need to change that," said Mahmoud al-Afranji, 38, the coordinator of the Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council (PHROC).

"Right now they are telling us that they are negotiating amendments to the law, but no one knows who they are negotiating with," he said.

Al-Afranji has been a longtime advocate for social security in Palestine, and has campaigned for more than a decade for the establishment of a social security corporation.

"I have been working for 15 years, but if I die tomorrow, my wife and kids will get nothing except my end-of-service pay," he told MEE. "I want to have the peace of mind knowing that if something happens to me, my family will be protected."

Unlike Ta’amra, who wants the law cancelled outright, al-Afranji hopes the law will be enacted, but only if the appropriate amendments are made.

"As a human rights activist, I believe that social security is a basic right that we should all have," al-Afranji said. "We can see the benefits of social security programs all over the world.

“But in its current form, this social security program won’t work," he said.

He said it's also crucial for the social security fund to remain separate from the PA and not be affiliated with any government institution.

“The simple reality is that people do not trust the government."

No trust in the PA

A lack of trust in Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the PA has been a driving force behind the protests, with demonstrators adopting the slogan: "Thieves, thieves, a gang of thieves."

With the PA unable to ensure that companies pay their employees a standard minimum wage, many Palestinian workers doubt the government will be able to collect the employers' portion of the retirement contributions.

That, coupled with Israel's regular withholding of PA tax funds and frequent Israeli army incursions into PA-held areas, including Ramallah, has pushed some Palestinians to say the PA is not stable or powerful enough to protect their money.

Critics say they don't trust Mahmoud Abbas or the PA to dole out the retirement pensions (AFP)

In fact, the Israeli army has entered Ramallah, the PA's administrative hub, repeatedly over the past few weeks, sometimes in broad daylight. The Israeli soldiers have raided Palestinian shops and offices and confiscated surveillance camera footage, among other things.

“If they can’t protect our people, how can I trust them to protect my money and my future?” Ta'amra said.

Dawoud Yousef, a human rights and political analyst based in the West Bank, said the Israeli army raids have burst "the facade of PA sovereignty over the bubble that is Ramallah".

How can we think about social security when we’re just trying to put food on the table?

- Mohammad Ta'amra

“There is a strong message being sent from Israel that even your own territory is not actually your territory," he said.

Yousef said the fact that the Israeli raids in Ramallah are happening at the same time as the protests against the social security law may spell disaster for the PA.

"Two messages are being sent right now to people across Palestine," he said. “First, that the PA is shaky in terms of its public support, and secondly, it can't even provide the two things most important to people: money and a Palestinian state."

If the protests shift into a wider call against the Palestinian government or Abbas himself, Yousef said he thinks the PA will be forced to backtrack on its plans for the law.

"The PA’s only legitimacy is based on money. And in the Trump era, they have very little aid or funding coming into their accounts," he said.

"With an impending economic crisis and the unlikelihood of elections happening soon, despite what Abbas says, if these protests were to take [on] a life of their own and really grow, it could be terminal for the PA."