J.S. Tisssainayagam sentenced to 20 years and justice is dead in Sri Lanka – Asian Human Rights Commission
August 31, 2009 – Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC)
The Asian Human Rights Commission is saddened, disappointed and shocked but not surprised at the judgment of the High Court of Colombo in sentencing J.S. Tisssainayagam to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment for a simple piece of writing which he had done and which was interpreted as aiding and abetting terrorism. The AHRC is not surprised by this judgment because at the very inception of this case the AHRC pointed out that this is purely a political case, the first of its kind in which the accused, Mr. Tisssainayagam’s guilt or innocence was not an issue but an opportunity to send a message to society on the changed circumstances of the country where freedom of expression does not matter at all. That was the real aim of this case. It is the sort of prosecution that could have happened under the regime of Joseph Stalin through the prosecutor, Andrei Vyshinsky.
In Vyshinsky’s trials the outcome was predetermined. The trials of the 1930s were known worldwide as show trials. Those actually accused were not really the targets of the proceedings. The accused were mere exhibits to be advertised before the rest of Russia in order to pass a message to the people about the fundamental beliefs that Stalin wanted to impose on society. Vyshinsky’s biographer Arkady Vaksberg writes that the “purpose of the trial had not been to disgrace or, indeed, to annihilate some of the accused but to create a precedent and pave the way for a psychological attack on the population.”
The greatest loser in this case is not J.S. Tisssainayagam it is the justice system and the judiciary in Sri Lanka that has suffered the greatest loss which would be hard for it to overcome. Even this is not a huge surprise for most people in Sri Lanka. They know that justice has been dead for a long time in their country.
Justice and media freedom in Sri Lanka is like the phantom limb; a dream of an amputee who still believes that his limbs are intact. The reminder of the Tisssainayagam case should always be associated with the image of the phantom limb.
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Camp children at risk of sexual abuse, trafficking – Child Fund International
August 27, 2009 – Tamilnet (Quoting :Child Fund”)
Noting the specific risks faced by children amongst the hundreds of thousands of people confined in Sri Lanka’s militarized concentration camps, ChildFund Australia on Wednesday launched a fundraising appeal to protect the youngsters. “Children who have been orphaned or separated from their families are particularly vulnerable, facing an increased risk of malnutrition, disease, sexual exploitation, abduction and trafficking,” ChildFund Australia CEO Nigel Spence said. The money raised by ChildFund Australia’s Sri Lanka appeal will be used, among other things, to provide children with “survival skills”, the NGO said: “Children will be taught survival and safety skills to help protect themselves from sexual abuse, violence and life-threatening diseases.”
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Sri Lankan journalist given 20 years in prison
August 31, 2009 – AP
A Sri Lankan reporter singled out by President Barack Obama as an example of persecuted journalists around the globe was sentenced Monday to 20 years in prison on charges of violating the country’s harsh anti-terror law.
J.S. Tissainayagam’s articles in the now-defunct Northeastern Monthly magazine in 2006 and 2007 criticized the conduct of the war against the Tamil Tiger rebels and accused authorities of withholding food and other essential items from Tamil-majority areas as a tool of war.
Tissainayagam’s conviction, 17 months after the ethnic Tamil reporter was arrested, was the first time a journalist was found guilty of violating the country’s Prevention of Terrorism Act.
Defense lawyer Anil Silva said Tissainayagam had always fought for human rights.
“He was never a racist and he at no time tried to arouse hatred,” he said in his defense filing. “Now he has been punished for what he wrote as a journalist. This will be a lesson to other journalists too.”
Silva said his client would appeal.
“There is no press freedom in this country today, even after the war is over,” said Sirithunga Jayasuriya, a local media rights activist. Tissainayagam’s conviction would set a bad precedent for media across the country, he said.
International media rights groups say the government has used emergency laws to silence public criticism of its conduct and has failed to investigate violent attacks — and killings — of journalists.
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Sri Lanka’s cynical technique of rebuttal – Aussie Don
August 31, 2009 – Tamilnet
Commenting on the recently exposed execution video, Professor Jake Lynch, Director, Centre for Peace and Conflict at Sydney University writes: “the Sri Lankan authorities assiduously kept journalists from international media away from the conflict zone, having, in the previous few years, terrorised local editors and reporters with arbitrary arrests, imprisonment and beatings, while many were mysteriously killed amid persistent rumours of official complicity. Now, the same authorities who have treated journalism with such contempt are seeking to keep information in the realm of contestability, through the cynical technique of rebuttal.”
“It’s a rare image of the brutality of the assault, by Sri Lankan armed forces, on the north-east of the country in their final offensive against the Tamil Tigers in the early months of this year,” Lynch says.
“If the Hindu priests can be allowed to return to their homes (or their families, if their homes were destroyed) the obvious question is, how come the rest can’t? Especially as conditions in the camps are now dramatically deteriorating because of monsoon rains…. Since [Pat Walsh of Channel-4 was ejected] then, in the absence of independent monitors, there can be no confidence that abuses are not continuing unchecked. Claims have trickled out, for instance, in recent days, that individuals are being spirited away in so-called Dolphin Vans, never to be seen again,” Lynch says of Sri Lanka’s violations of international norms at the camps.
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Sentence to Tissainayagam extra-judicial: HR lawyer
August 31, 2009 – Tamilnet
The sentence of 20-year rigorous imprisonment to J.S. Tissanayagam on Monday mark a sad day for journalists and those who believe in the ’freedom of expression’ all over the world, says Deputy Chairperson of Northeast Secretariat on Human Rights (NESoHR), K Sivapalan, an Atterney-at-Law from Trincomalee, in whose opinion this is an extra-judicial way to punish people. ”The provisions of the PTA are not in conformity with the International Criminal Law especially the ’confession’ being admitted in evidence agaist the accused and with regard to the burden of proof.UNHRC requested the GoSL to repeal or amend many of the provisions which were not in conformity. However this was not followed by them on the basis that it was an erosion of the sovereignty of Sri Lanka,” Mr. Sivapalan, now exiled in Norway, said.
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