Archive for Advocacy
December 13, 2009 at 12:07 pm · Categories: Advocacy, Human Rights, Human Security, Media and Communications, Peace and Conflict, Politics and Governance, Post-War, War Crimes | by Groundviews
To commemorate Human Rights Day 2009 (falling on 10 December) Groundviews interviewed a number of leading activists in Sri Lanka to find out their perspectives on current challenges facing human rights in post-war Sri Lanka. In general, activists featured were asked to comment on the Sri Lankan State’s protection of human rights, the nexus between human rights and human dignity and opportunities for greater human rights protection over the coming years.
This video features Sunila Abeysekara, an award winning Sri Lankan human rights activist. The interview was conducted over a Skype video call.
Sunila talks about, amongst a number of other vital issues, the current state of media freedom and the freedom of expression, a fundamental difference between human dignity and …
December 10, 2009 at 10:25 am · Categories: Advocacy, Diaspora, Human Rights, Human Security, Jaffna, Peace and Conflict, Politics and Governance | by Prof. Rajan Hoole
[Editors Note: Prof. Rajan Hoole, co-founder of UTHR (J) and co-author of the Broken Palmyra, presents this piece exclusively to Groundviews for Human Rights Day 2009].
One important indicator of Human Rights protection in modern society is successful enforcement of the rule of law. Human Rights activism in Lanka came about as a response to special challenges arising from progressive deterioration of the rule of law. The law is technical in its workings. Good laws and good law enforcement advance human rights, and their opposites lead to conflict and crisis. The strengthening of institutional aspects of human rights, the promotion of a human rights culture and the ambient political mores in which these operate, interact with and influence one another. Deterioration …
November 6, 2009 at 7:00 am · Categories: Advocacy, Ampara, Anuradhapura, Batticaloa, Colombo, Districts, Galle, Gampaha, Hambantota, Human Rights, Human Security, IDPs and Refugees, Jaffna, Kalutara, Kandy, Kegalle, Kurunegala, Mannar, Matale, Matara, Media and Communications, Moneragala, Nuwara Eliya, Peace and Conflict, Politics and Governance, Pollonnaruwa, Post-War, Puttlam, Reconciliation, Trincomalee, Vavuniya, War Crimes | by Dr. P. Saravanamuttu
Whilst it is not clear as to whether we would be voting in both the presidential and general elections on the same day, it is clear that we will be voting in at least one of them in the next three months, followed soon thereafter by the other. Most likely it will be the presidential elections since it is the president who has to decide and since he is much more popular than his party. Moreover, we have been told that he is willing to sacrifice, if necessary, two years of his first term in order to secure a second and a parliamentary majority nearest to the heart’s desire.
All elections are important and these will be no exception. It is worth …
October 19, 2009 at 1:03 pm · Categories: Advocacy, Disabilities | by Groundviews
As reported in State media, on 14th October 2009, the Supreme Court ordered that public buildings to be constructed in the future should be easily accessible to disabled persons. The Court further ordered that such buildings should be facilitated with adequate sanitary facilities for such persons.
Groundviews spoke with Sunethra Bandaranaike, Chairperson of the Sunera Foundation, for her views of the judgement as an activist who has, through theatre and art, championed the rights of the disabled in Sri Lanka over a number of years.
September 22, 2009 at 10:42 am · Categories: Advocacy, Galle, Peace and Conflict, Post-War, Reconciliation | by Deborah Philips
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“Where is the hope?” is a question that the writer encountered quite a few times when she asked people to pose with the HOPE board. The culture of impunity prevalent in post-war Sri Lanka paints a rather depressing picture of a country that has lost the ability to hope. Human rights continue to be violated, there is an upsurge in criminal activity, media freedom is severely restricted and nationalist rhetoric continues to be the theme of those in the highest echelons of power. Hope has been replaced with a sense of hopelessness and apathy that has gripped society. In order for positive change to …
September 14, 2009 at 10:58 pm · Categories: Advocacy, Colombo, Peace and Conflict | by Concerned Citizen
As I scanned the Sunday newspapers today, I saw the ‘wanted’ faces of Sara and Jehan and the bold article by Tissaranee who are but a few brave patriots in our country who are virtually sticking their necks out to uphold the time tested values of justice, peace and equity in our beautiful isle.
Criticizing the regime is deemed as high treason and poor Tissanayagam had to pay the price for it through a showcase trial that warned everyone to shut up or else! Yes, many of us had a gut feeling that we were headed in the direction of a dictatorship but were never thought it will catch up on us so quickly and stealthily. Corruption has pervaded out entire …
September 1, 2009 at 11:44 am · Categories: Advocacy, Colombo, Media and Communications, Peace and Conflict, Post-War | by Groundviews
Groundviews first highlighted the case of J.S. Tissainayagam last year, noting that,
Salient points of Tissa’s case point to a larger and more chilling deterioration of media freedom in Sri Lanka under the Rajapakse administration. Tissa’s case in particular reveals a particularly twisted logic, and through it, confirms fears that the regime in the South now completely mirrors the intolerance of media freedom and free expression the LTTE is known and reviled for.
In May 2009, President Barack Obama referred to Tissa as an emblematic example of the distressing reality of journalist’s jailed for their writing. On 31st August 2009, Tissa was sentenced by the High Court in Colombo to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment under the draconian Prevention …
August 20, 2009 at 11:39 pm · Categories: Advocacy, Colombo, Constitutional Reform, Peace and Conflict, Politics and Governance, Post-War | by Qadri Ismail
Authors note: The following is the text of a talk before a forum on minority rights organized by the CPA in July. It should, ideally, have been edited for publication. But, given the recent death threat against CPA Director, Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu, is offered here as a gesture of solidarity. Saravanamuttu is one of Sri Lanka’s most consistent, courageous, anti-racist voices. I am not surprised that the mass-murdering, corrupt, militaristic, totalitarian-inclined government of the Rajapakses would want to silence him.
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My brief today is specific: to reflect on a provocative statement in the president’s victory speech after the military defeat of the LTTE. The speech as a whole, given its occasion and its content, demands serious consideration, debate. …
July 31, 2009 at 2:17 pm · Categories: Advocacy, Colombo, Education | by Niranjan Dias Bandaranayake
At a recent discussion on; “Free schooling in Sri Lanka- A successful model then but a myth now?”, the subject of English language education in Sri Lanka came up for discussion once again. Most, if not all, of the participants and panelists agreed that there is a pressing need for English language standards to improve especially in the state schools and a lack of quality English language teachers was the main reason for the poor standard of English in the country at present.
People are well aware that English language education started to decline in this country with the introduction of the “Sinhala only” bill in 1956. So for the past 53 years English has not been an official language of …
March 18, 2009 at 7:55 am · Categories: Advocacy, Colombo, Media and Communications | by Sanjana Hattotuwa
This sadly is not an unusual sight in Colombo. Despite well-known problems arising from industrial and vehicular emissions and the Central Environment Authority’s Vehicle Emission Testing Programme, we see a number of these wretched vehicles on the road.
This bus belonged to (or was operating under) one of Sri Lanka’s best known travel agencies. Weathering financial woes, it may be the case that they cannot maintain their vehicles as best they can. But should they care about more than just their bottom line?
Pulling up behind this bus and switching off my A/C because it was pulling in all the smoke, …
March 8, 2009 at 9:24 am · Categories: Advocacy, Colombo, Human Rights, Media and Communications, Politics and Governance | by Publius
Exactly a year ago today, a week before the Royal-Thomian, the journalist J.S. Tissainayagam went into the TID to enquire after his friends who had been taken in for questioning the previous day, and promptly walked into a monstrous nightmare that continues to date. After months of agonising uncertainty and delay, roughshod abuse of process by the TID and a deplorable judicial refusal to enforce procedural rights fundamental in a democracy by the Supreme Court, he was finally charged last year under that ghastly blot on our legal landscape, the PTA. Tissa thereby won the suspect distinction of becoming the first journalist to be prosecuted for PTA offences arising directly out of the practice of his profession.
In proof that …
January 1, 2009 at 7:00 am · Categories: Advocacy, Colombo | by Lalith Gunaratne
Close your eyes and imagine a horn free Colombo – no loud ‘fog horns’ from all those buses – bliss !!. As I sit here in a café in the centre of Windhoek, Namibia, I have not heard a horn all morning. This is developing country but the road behavior is definitely ‘developed’. In the last six months, I have been working in several African countries and one thing that stood out for me is the good road discipline and how little they use the horn. There is always the exception as in Kenya and Malawi’s private bus drivers – the ‘mutatoos’ - a law onto themselves. Yet, it is nothing compared to the nuisance of the ‘fog horns’ and …
November 14, 2008 at 12:11 pm · Categories: Advocacy | by Groundviews
J.C. Weliamuna is the Executive Director of Transparency International in Sri Lanka and an Attorney-at-Law. He and his family were lucky to escape with their lives after two grenades were thrown into their house, just a week or two after this interview was recorded.
Our discussion explored the nature of corruption in Sri Lanka, how it stunts Sri Lanka’s development and contributes to violence. We also looked at challenges and options in raising public awareness to effectively eradicate corruption from polity and society.
Previous posts on the attack on Weli can be found here and here.
November 12, 2008 at 7:45 am · Categories: Advocacy, Colombo, Education, Human Rights, IDPs and Refugees, Jaffna, Peace and Conflict, Politics and Governance | by Groundviews
Interview with K. Guruparan, a well known Sri Lankan Youth Activist. Guru is a student at the Faculty of Law University of Colombo and the Founder of the Sri Lankan Youth Parliament based at the Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies. He is also associated with Beyond Borders and was an Action Partner for the Oxfam International Youth Parliament, having attended the second sitting of the Parliament in Sydney, July 2004.
October 25, 2008 at 12:10 pm · Categories: Advocacy, Colombo, Constitutional Reform, Human Rights, Peace and Conflict, Politics and Governance | by Groundviews
An interview on Emergency Rule, GSP+, Human Rights and Democracy in Sri Lanka conducted with Asanga Welikala, author of A State of Permanent Crisis: Constitutional Government, Fundamental Rights, and States of Emergency in Sri Lanka and, writing as Publius, one of the best read political and constitutional commentators on this site.
(If the video is choppy, hit pause and go make yourself a cuppa. The video will continue to download in the background. After around 5 minutes, hit play.)
September 27, 2008 at 10:17 am · Categories: Advocacy, Colombo | by CHA
Siri Hettige
Professor of Sociology
University of Colombo
Education is recognized the world over as a means of achieving wider social and economic objectives. Modern education systems are designed in such a way as to facilitate the achievement of such wider objectives. On the one hand, we provide youngsters with a basic education that enables them to fit into a society that is based on modern ideas and values so that they eventually become active citizens of a modern state. It is also in the context of general education that some of the traditional divisions in society are relegated to the background making it possible for young members of society to forge bonds that transcend their primordial identities.
On the other hand, education …
September 2, 2008 at 11:17 am · Categories: Advocacy, Colombo | by Chulani Kodikara
In an earlier article on Groundviews titled ‘Half a Democracy‘, the author referred to the virtual absence of women in political institutions in Sri Lanka, and their resultant inability to define politics and influence decision making in a context of continuing conflict, soaring prices, and widespread human rights abuses by the state.
I want to add that the main obstacle to equal political representation of women in political institutions in Sri Lanka is POLITICAL PARTIES – their lack of commitment to give nominations to women, the lack of internal party democracy and the present political culture perpetuated by parties. Following more than a decade of women’s activism on the abysmal numbers of women in political institutions, it is true …
February 15, 2008 at 9:27 pm · Categories: Advocacy, Colombo, Human Rights, Politics and Governance | by Groundviews
ROHAN EDRISINHA & ASANGA WELIKALA
There has recently been speculation and media reports about the European Union’s system of tariff preferences known as the ‘GSP Plus’ programme, of which Sri Lanka is presently a beneficiary country. The tariff preferences create massive advantages in particular to our apparel industry, and have implications for the wellbeing and employment for thousands in that important sector of our economy. It is vital, therefore, that Sri Lanka retains this privilege.
The controversy relates to the fact that Sri Lanka’s continued beneficiary status comes up for renewal later in 2008, and whether Sri Lanka continues to qualify for the GSP Plus benefits in terms of the requirements that are set out for this by the European Union. One …
January 1, 2008 at 6:02 am · Categories: Advocacy, Colombo, Human Rights, Human Security, Peace and Conflict, Politics and Governance | by Groundviews
by Lionel Bopage
Lionel Bopage was a former General Secretary of the JVP. He was involved with the JVP since 1968 and resigned in 1984.
Any government genuinely looking after the interests of its people would stand for pluralism and the fundamental democratic and human rights of its people. Thus that government will be obliged to take all the necessary steps to uphold the rule of law and to establish and maintain appropriate mechanisms to prevent the abuse of power and protect the life and liberty of every individual. This includes the right to life, freedom of movement, freedom of speech and assembly, freedom from torture, arbitrary arrest and unlawful detention.
In the recent past, the human and democratic rights of the people …
November 7, 2007 at 11:32 am · Categories: Advocacy, Constitutional Reform, Politics and Governance | by Deane
‘Democracy’ and ‘Crisis’ are words we have come to associate them in the same sentence.
In this site and elsewhere, many people have lamented over the conduct of the present administration; Its blatant disregard for anything remotely ‘democratic’ – be it in a lack of accountability in public finances, due process of parliament or a total disregard of the freedom of the press, the Rajapakse administration have both directly and indirectly communicated that such democratic nuisances are too much of an inconvenience, especially ‘when fighting terrorism’.
One can, being good citizens of what is still, at least a quasi-democracy; place the blame squarely on the President, his brothers, the hundred-something ministers and hope the blame game would lead to some sort of …
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