Sri Lanka: A missionary and a layman are jailed on “terrorism” charges 

(©ansa) A protest held by the local Tamil minority

Fr. Praveen Mahesan and activist Ruki Fernando have criticised the government’s policies and have committed themselves to defending the rights of the Tamil minority

Paolo Affatato
rome

Fr. Praveen Mahesan, a parish priest and missionary of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) and Ruki Fernando, an activist, lay Catholic and a defender of human rights have been put in prison in Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo, after police accused them of committing acts of terrorism as described in the “Prevention of Terrorism Act” (PTA). Fr. Camille Piche, Director of the Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation office at the OMI’s General House in Rome, spoke to Vatican Insider, expressing concern and outrage of the missionary congregation following the news of this absurd and random arrest. Statements released by local priests and organisations say that the Sri Lankan Church, the local people and international organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are also protesting the arrests.

The two men were arrested on 16 March in Kilinochchi (northern Sri Lanka) after they were accused of taking part in “suspicious activities”. They were detained in Vavuniya before being taken to Colombo. Fr. Praveen Mahesan is Director of the Centre for Peace and Reconciliation (CPR) established by the Oblate missionaries in Jaffna and is also parish priest of Akkarayan in the  Kilinochchi district. Ruki Fernando is special advisor of the Centre for human rights documentation in Colombo. Both are actively engaged in defending the human rights of the local Tamil minority which has suffered serious abuse, violence and discrimination from the police and army. In recent days Bishop Rayyappu Joseph and the Tamil clergy issued an open letter which set alarm bells ringing: “Human rights defenders and whoever criticises the government’s policies and practices are branded as supporters of terrorism or as traitors,” the letter said. This includes Catholic priests who have faced “interrogations, threats and intimidation.”

The two were arrested in Tharmapuram, in the Kilinochchi district, where they were visiting some families who had lost loved ones at war. Above all, they were trying to help the family of 13-year-old Tamil girl Balendran Vithushaini, whose mother, Balendran Jeyakumari, was arrested on 13 March. The family had given eyewitness accounts of the forced disappearances that have taken place in Sri Lanka to UN officials and to British PM David Cameron. Mahesan and Fernando were interrogated and arrested by a Sri Lankan army unit. They are suspected of protecting Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) militants whom the government has classed as “terrorists”. The arrests have been justified officially as “an anti-terrorism act. A police spokesman said the two men are mainly accused of “causing instability among local communities and promoting separatism.”

According to the anti-terrorism laws in force, the police can detain them for three days before making formal accusations. The legislation, which is strongly opposed by the international community, allows for individuals to be detained for 18 months without a court order and without trial and can lead to prison terms of up to 20 years.

Are Sri Lanka’s ‘anti-terror’ arrests an attempt to intimidate activists?

(CNN) — A prominent Sri Lankan rights activist controversially detained by his government under anti-terror laws says he believes his arrest was partly spurred by an international push to independently investigate the country’s human rights record following decades of civil war.

Ruki Fernando, one of his country’s leading human rights activists, was arrested late Sunday night with fellow activist Rev. Praveen Mahesan, a Roman Catholic priest, in the former Tamil rebel stronghold of Kilinochchi in the country’s north.

The men were taken to the Colombo headquarters of Sri Lanka’s Terrorist Investigation Division, held for more than 48 hours and questioned, without access to lawyers, before being released early Monday.

“I think it’s a deliberate attempt to intimidate and suppress any form of dissent, criticism or challenge, and clearly not allow people outside Sri Lanka to know what’s happening inside the country,” Fernando told CNN after his release. “I anticipate that I will be subject to greater scrutiny and I am extremely worried about the safety and wellbeing of my colleagues and people I’ve spoken to in the past.”

The arrests drew a wave of condemnation from NGOs and foreign governments, with British Foreign Office Minister Hugo Swire saying they were “not acceptable” and the U.S. Embassy expressing concern. Fred Carver of the UK-based Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice said the invocation of anti-terror laws was “outrageous” and “patently absurd.” “They’re peace activists,” he said.

Proposed resolution

The arrests occurred in the build-up to a crucial session of the United Nations Human Rights Council this month, at which a resolution sponsored by the United States, Britain and other countries is expected to be tabled. The proposed resolution could call for an independent international investigation into war crimes committed by government forces and Tamil separatists during Sri Lanka’s 26-year civil war, which ended in 2009, as well as more recent alleged government abuses in the five years since its end.

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The council has passed two previous resolutions urging Sri Lanka to investigate war crimes, but its perceived failure to do so has led some nations to call for an independent investigation.

Sri Lankan police spokesman Ajith Rohana said Fernando faced three charges: selling information abroad, attempting to damage the national harmony between communities, and aiding and abetting the rebuilding of the Tamil Tigers — the brutal militant group involved in fighting for a Tamil homeland in the north of the country during the decades-long civil war. The investigation had found insufficient evidence to proceed with the charges.

Fernando said the first two charges, which appeared to relate to his work with foreign media to highlight rights abuses, suggested that their arrest was motivated in strong part by the impending events in Geneva.

“I think what happened to us is very much linked to the resolution discussion,” he said. “I was repeatedly asked who in Geneva, who outside Sri Lanka, was I sharing information with? It seemed very clear they took great care for other nations not to hear any alternative information or perspectives from within Sri Lanka.”

‘Attempt to intimidate’

Carver said that, beyond the Sri Lankan government’s “thumbing its nose at Geneva,” the arrests amounted to an attempt to intimidate those working to expose human rights abuses in post-war Sri Lanka.

“I think this is about sending a warning to human rights defenders that just because Geneva is going their way they haven’t won, and more importantly showing them that they cannot interface with U.N. processes without suffering consequences. So if an investigation is established, they better not testify.”

But Rohana denied that there was any attempt to intimidate or punish those involved in activism around the U.N. resolution. He said the activists had been arrested after visiting a place of interest relating to the shooting of a policeman in the Kilinochchi area last week.

Fernando, a Catholic from the country’s Sinhalese majority, denies any connection to the shooting or those responsible. He said he and Mahesan, a Tamil, had gone to investigate the facts surrounding the arrest of another activist in relation to the shooting, in the regular course of their human rights work.

The activist, Jeyakumari Balendran, became a prominent campaigner against political disappearances after her teen son, who had been conscripted to fight for the Tigers, went missing after reportedly surrendering at the end of the war. She was arrested Friday on suspicion of harboring K.P. Selvanayagam, a Tamil Tiger-affiliated figure also known as “Gobi,” after he shot and wounded a policeman as authorities closed in on her house, according to a Sri Lankan government memo to the U.N.

Fernando denied any connection to Selvanayagam.

Mixed fortunes

The end of Sri Lanka’s civil war has been a boon to its economy, paving the way for infrastructure reconstruction and the return of tourists, and bolstering President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s popularity.

But activists are calling on the international community to pay attention to conditions in Tamil-majority areas in the north and east of the country.

A large military presence is at the heart of complaints of ongoing land expropriation, disappearances, sexual violations, arbitrary arrests and limitations on the freedom of movement, according to rights groups. Meanwhile an ongoing “Sinhalization” process — in which the Buddhist culture and places of worship of the Sinhalese community were replacing the Hindu landscape of Tamil areas — was a serious concern, as was growing hostility towards Christian and Muslim minorities, according to a joint memorandum submitted by civil society groups to the U.N. earlier this month.

In a report in February, the Office of the U.N.’s High Commissioner for Human Rights acknowledged Sri Lanka’s progress made in implementing some of the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, its national mechanism for post-war reconciliation. But it noted the government had failed to ensure independent and credible investigations into past violations, and noted ongoing attacks on religious minorities and intimidation of human rights activists, lawyers and journalists.