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SRI LANKA: Deterioration of the legal intellect: (3) Descent into the selling of children

by Basil Fernando  Last week, several news reports revealed the story of an 8-year-old child (reported as a 10-years-old by some media houses) from Ambathenna, Katugastota. The mother made the initial report about her missing child to the Katugastota police. Initially, the police ignored the complaint and did nothing to begin searching for the child. […]

INDIA: Two encounters and a democracy

Article | India | 08-04-2015

by Avinash Pandey  The world’s largest democracy witnessed its police force killing 25 of its citizens in two encounters in Andhra Pradesh. “Encounters”, for the uninitiated, are a euphemism for killing unarmed civilians in staged gun battles. The police version of both the alleged encounters is such that it could be laughed-off had they not […]

SRI LANKA: Deterioration of the legal intellect: (2) Father, mother, and son killed in retaliation for filing a fundamental rights petition against five police officers

by Basil Fernando Geekiyanage Premalal De Silva filed a Petition in the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka in 1989 alleging that some officers of the Panadura Police arrested him in May 1989, without a warrant, on a false charge of robbery and that he was tortured and subjected to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment while in […]

SRI LANKA: Deterioration of the legal intellect: 1) Quelling mass protests with extrajudicial killings

by Basil Fernando  The discovery of the bodies of four members of the same family in Wennapuwa on 1 January 2015 is one of the gravest crimes reported in recent times. The victims of these horrific murders were a dental surgeon attached to the Lunuwila Hospital, her husband who was a businessman, their 13-year-old son, […]

INDIA: Celebrating “internet freedom” in a country known for custodial killings?

Article | India | 25-03-2015

By Avinash Pandey  The Supreme Court’s scrapping of Section 66 A of the Information Technology Act for being “unconstitutional in entirety” is indeed a great moment in the life of the democracy. The Act did, in fact, invade citizenry’s right of free speech “arbitrarily, excessively and disproportionately”. However, is this really a moment to celebrate […]

INDIA: सिएथल से सिएटल की यात्रा

Article | India | 19-03-2015

सचिन कुमार जैन  आदिवासियों को लेकर फैली सारी भ्रांतियों को मिटा देने वाला एक उदाहरण और है। वह है रेड इन्डियन आदिवासियों के मुखिया सिएथल का जिसके नाम पर अमरीका का सिएथल शहर है। ब्रिटेन से सजायाफ्ता अंग्रेजों को बतौर सजा अमरीका भेजा गया था तब उन्होंने व उनके वंशजों ने जो जुल्म उन आदिवासियों […]

INDIA: A “kill and compensate” package for farmers

Article | India | 17-03-2015

by Avinash Pandey While the whole country was celebrating Holi, a joyous festival of colours, three farmers that were contemplating suicide in the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh went ahead and took their own lives. One of them, wearing the same colour soaked dress he had celebrated the festival in, hung himself to a tree. […]

INDIA: मध्यप्रदेश में लगातार जारी है बाल लिंगानुपात का घटना

Article | India | 15-01-2015

भारत में महिलाओं का घटता लिंग अनुपात एक विकराल समस्या के तौर पर उभर के सामने आ रहा है। ताजा आंकड़ों (2011 जनगणना) के अनुसार देश में छह वर्ष तक की उम्र के बच्चों के लिंगानुपात में सबसे ज्यादा गिरावट देखने में आयी है जो कि सरकार और समाज दोनों के लिए ही शर्मनाक और […]

PAKISTAN: Tears start falling as schools reopen

Schools across Pakistan reopened on 12th January 2015 following the horrors of the Peshawar carnage that was unleashed on 16th December 2014, on the innocent school children at the Peshawar Army Public School (APS). Parents and teachers along with the Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Shareef attended the sombre morning assembly where the surviving students vowed […]

PAKISTAN: Military courts-creating a legal and political mire

6 January 2014 shall forever be etched in our collective concise as a sad day when we sold our souls to the devil. Senator Raza Rabbani appeared heartbroken on the floor of the assembly as he shed tears for the assembly taking its last breath “Perhaps, I never felt ashamed as much in my life […]

HONG KONG/PHILIPPINES: Presumption of guilt dispenses with need for evidence

(Note: this article was first published in the January 4, 2015 issue of the Sunday Examiner) Six year old Chris Angela Sales, whose father is being held on charges of murder, could not understand why her father, who brings her street food, buys her milk and puts her to bed after work, has been locked in a […]

PAKISTAN: Establishment of military court: a recipe for disaster

by Javeria Younes The year 2014 bids us adieu, as the government of Pakistan gears up to set up military court “come what may”. The military machinery at GHQ is at full swing these days as hurried consultation between the government and the military officials take place over amendments in the constitution to pave way […]

ASIA / INDIA: Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer’s legacy, an inspiration for generations to come

Article | Asia | 08-12-2014

by Basil Fernando All Indians owe a debt of gratitude to Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer, a great man, who passed away on 4th December 2014, shortly after his hundredth birthday. He stood up against the might of the powers of the day with firm determination to save his country and its freedoms. When Justice Krishna […]

PAKISTAN: Universal children’s day-the overall child rights situation in Sindh, depicts a murky picture

by Jamil Junejo Universal children’s day is being observed globally on 20th November every yearwhen theUN General Assembly adopted the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). This year, it is the 25th anniversary of UNCRC. A wider galaxy of international rights community has planned to mark this day in order to […]

INDIA: Sterilising women to death

Article | India | 14-11-2014

by Avinash Pandey A doctor conducted sterilization surgeries on 83 women in 5 hours in an abandoned hospital with no infrastructure. The women were made to lay on floor for the surgery and there are allegations that the medicines came from a small, one room factory that is owned by close affiliates of the party […]

SRI LANKA: JVP’s second uprising and the moral breakdown of the society

by Basil Fernando The 13th of November (tomorrow) will be the 25th Death Anniversary of Rohana Wijeweera, the late leader of the JVP, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuana (The Peoples Liberation Front). It is perhaps an appropriate moment to recall the cruelty and the violence engaged in by the JVP as well as of the government security […]

ASIA: Precedence of an icon of human rights – An interview with Basil Fernando

Article | Asia | 09-11-2014

The following interview was originally published in the latest issue ( Volume 3 Number 4 & 5)  of Torture: Asian and Global Perspectives ON 25th September 2014, Basil Fernando and the Asian Human Rights Commission was bestowed with the coveted Right Livelihood Award, widely known as the “Alternate Nobel Prize,” for “his tireless and outstanding […]

INDIA: Uninformed outrages won’t bring in criminal justice reform

Article | India | 05-11-2014

by Avinash Pandey “Forceful sex on menopausal woman not rape-Delhi High Court” read a news item (title changed now though the URL remains the same) on one media group website. “Delhi High Court Says ‘Forceful Sex’ Wasn’t Rape”, cried another news outlet. Together, the media coverage on the case has opened the floodgates for the […]

PAKISTAN: Human rights, abortion and disabled women

(The following article was originally published in the Ethics In Action, a bi-monthly publication devoted to discussing how movements and leaderships claiming to uphold ethics and morality have failed to promote and protect human rights. Click here to read the latest issue of the journal   ) The word ‘rights’ very often seem so wrong—politically,  socially […]

INDIA: “Swachh Bharat Abhiyan” and the filth of democracy

Article | India | 31-10-2014

by Avinash Pandey Photo Courtesy M. Srinath, The Hindu No, the man pictured here has not entered the gutter as part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s much hyped Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, or “clean India campaign”. Unlike the ad rush that shows posing with the broom, he could not have entered the gutter to preach the […]