Focus, partnership and joined-up advocacy in defence of human rights – the UK Foreign Office’s lost vocation, as revealed by the diplomats’ own annual report. Rohan Jayasekera comments
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Opposition voices targeted to silence them before parliamentary elections says Index’s Rohan Jayasekera
The word McCarthyite is all too easily tossed about these days, but it’s hard not to apply it to what’s happening in Sri Lanka, as President Mahinda Rajapaksa prepares to follow his snap re-election with a blitz parliamentary vote and a ruthless crackdown on political critics and independent media ahead of it.
Rajapakse’s January re-election and last year’s military victories over separatist Tamil Tiger insurgents have not slowed his habit of publicly denouncing his critics without evidence; fully aware that his words put his targets at risk from gangs of armed supporters.
“This is clearly a politically motivated practice of making accusation of disloyalty or treason without proper regard for evidence,”says journalist and rights activist Uvindu Kurukulasuriya. Brad Adams, Asia Director at Human Rights Watch describes it as “a carefully coordinated witch hunt… extremely dangerous and irresponsible in a country where journalists and activists have often been threatened and killed.”
With less than a month to go before parliamentary elections, Kurukulasuriya tells Index that the main aim is simple censorship. “It is a psychology of fear through abductions, killings and other form of pressure that is brought in,” he says. “It’s not so much about what is written, but what you should not write. For instance, we are asked not to refer to this and that, or to the President, or to the Secretary of Defence. Media in Sri Lanka certainly (suffer from) a certain censorship, but this is beyond the norm.”
Since the January 2010 presidential election, the government has engaged in a campaign to silence and discredit journalists and non-governmental organizations, a trend that reached a peak with the publication on March 3 of an apparently leaked government surveillance list of more than 30 journalists and activists.
Two of the names high up the list, Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) Executive Director Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu and J.C. Weliamuna, Executive Director of Transparency International, Sri Lanka (TISL) warned there are reasonable grounds for fear about the physical liberty and safety of those named.
“There has been no justice or punishment served by recourse to the criminal justice system in the numerous cases of killings, enforced disappearances and abductions,” they wrote to Rajapakse this week, “and the entrenched culture of impunity, arbitrariness and the ineffectiveness of law enforcement have only encouraged further abuses.”
“There is a fundamental misconception that opposition to specific actions and policies by the government is equal to support for the opposition,” said Saravanamuttu and Weliamuna. “It is not only a fundamental democratic principle but also part of the fundamental rights declared and protected by the constitution that Sri Lankans are entitled to the freedoms of thought, conscience, opinion, expression, association and occupation.”
“This smacks of retaliation for reporting on violations during the presidential election,” says Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific director. “Despite the elections and the end of the war against the Tamil Tigers, the government seems to have a hard time getting rid of the habit of repression.”
Both the CPA and TISL played a key role in monitoring the January presidential election, reporting on electoral violations and the government’s misuse of state resources to campaign in favor of incumbent Rajapaksa.
Dozens of journalists and activists have fled the country and am atmosphere of impunity and intimidation that has worsened since January. Journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda of Lanka eNews disappeared on January 24 and remains missing, despite calls for a serious investigation. On March 9, the parliament voted to extend emergency regulations, widely used to target activists, until after April’s elections.
“In the run up to the legislative elections slated for April, the Sri Lankan government is clearly trying to divert criticism from itself after the egregious violations perpetrated against the press and other opposition candidates during the recent presidential election,” said Jennifer Windsor, executive director of US based free speech group Freedom House this week. “This is yet another example of the government acting with impunity and trying to discredit voices of dissent.”
Index on Censorship’s associate editor Rohan Jayasekera has just come back from Gori, Georgia — birthplace of Josef Stalin. He didn’t buy the t-shirt though.
UK lawyers representing the 36 residents of Camp Ashraf detained after the violent 28 July occupation of the site by Iraqi forces, are pressing the United Nations to ensure their immediate and safe release.
The detainees’ representatives urge both the UN and US forces in Iraq to defend their right and the rights of the rest of the camp’s residents as “protected persons” under the Geneva Convention.
They call for international protection for Camp Ashraf, home to 3,500 Iranian members, including 1,000 women and some children. And as a first step, they call for a monitoring team to be sent to Ashraf and based in the camp’s central Khalis police station.
To date, none of the 36 detainees have been granted due process, nor been allowed to see lawyers, the Red Cross officials or others. Eyewitness reports say they were beaten as they were removed from the camp.
Index on Censorship, along with other groups, is urging that the UN, in its own investigations, support the right of the Iraqi and international media to enter and report from the camp. Access is presently denied by the Iraqi authorities.
“It is clear the Iraqi authorities are ensuring that no reports or images emerge from Camp Ashraf but, in so doing, they are showing they have something to hide,” media rights group Reporters sans Frontierès has said. “This situation is unacceptable. The army must allow journalists to do their job in the camp, so that the world can know what is happening there.”
All the detainees are connected to the People’s Mojahedeen Organisation of Iran (PMOI), an Iranian opposition organization whose members have been resident in Iraq for many years.
The detainees’ representatives fear that pro-Iranian factions in the government or their paramilitary supporters will hand them over to Iran, where torture and death most likely await.
Amnesty International has called on the Iraqi government to investigate the apparent excessive use of force by Iraqi security forces, to reveal the whereabouts of the detained and ensure they are protected from torture or other ill-treatment, as well as from forcible return to Iran.
The Iranian government has demanded the camp’s closure and for all its residents to be extradited to Tehran. Pro-Iranian armed forces have attacked Ashraf’s water pumping station and have fired rockets into the camp.
Given their status as protected persons under the fourth Geneva Convention and given the fact that they have been legally resident in Iraq, the UN should on humanitarian grounds and on the basis of international law, step up and provide international protection for the detainees and camp residents.
On 28-29 July, 2,000 Iraqi troops, under the orders of the Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki, forced their way into Camp Ashraf. Twelve people were reported killed and some 500 were injured – 12 remain in a critical condition.
According to eye witness reports the 36 detainees were beaten as they were removed from the camp.
Up until recently, US forces provided protection for the camp and its residents, who were recognised as “protected persons” after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The US reportedly agreed to give up responsibility for the camp while negotiating the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the US and Iraqi governments, although the SOFA makes no reference to Camp Ashraf or its residents.
It is argued that the US is still responsible, under Article 45 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, to protect residents of Ashraf given the failure of the Iraqi authorities to do so. US forces observed the original attack and provided some medical aid but have not tried to have the detainees returned to the camp. Iraq is not a signatory of the 1951 Geneva Convention.
A number of Ashraf’s residents have already been recognised as refugees in European countries, including the UK, though PMOI members in Iraq did not individually seek political asylum in Iraq. They argued that they had been collectively recognised as refugees by the previous Iraqi government and that status still stands.
Until recently, the PMOI was listed as a “terrorist” organisation by the European Union and other governments. In most cases the designation was lifted on the grounds that the PMOI no longer advocates or engages in armed opposition to the government of Iran.