NESOHR Deputy refutes Kadirgamar's statement at the UN
http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=14538
[TamilNet, March 23, 2005 23:56 GMT]
Mr. K. Sivapalan, Attorney-at-Law and Deputy Chairperson of the North
East Secretariat on Human Rights, on Wednesday refuted the recent
statement made by Mr. Lakshman Kadirgamar at the 61st Sessions of the
UN Commission on Human Rights. There were several misleading and wrong
facts in Kadirgamar's address, Mr. Sivapalan, told the UN Commission.
Some excerpts of the statement issued by NESOHR are given below.
Attorney-at-Law Mr. K. Sivapalan
"Northeast Secretariat On Human Rights (NESOHR) wishes to refute
emphatically the several misleading and wrong facts included in the
address by Mr. Lakshman Kadirgamar, the Minister for foreign Affairs at
the high level segment of the 61st Sessions of the UN Commission on
Human Rights recently.
"Contrary to what Mr. Kadirgamar has stated, the Emergency Regulation
has not been allowed to lapse at the first instance on their own
volition but because the then government was not in a position to get
the majority votes, it was not put before the parliament for extension.
The Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act has not been
repealed and it still remains in the statutes. It was only because of
the Cease Fire Agreement entered into between GOSL and LTTE, that it
has temporarily been suspended from being used in the Northeast of the
Country. However it has once been used earlier for restricting the
fishing rights along the North Eastern coast.
"Far from becoming an obsolete piece of legislation, as stated by
Kadirgamar, Emergency (Miscellaneous Provisions and Powers), regulation
No. 1 of 2005 has been promulgated on the 3rd of February 2005
incorporating corresponding sections of the PTA, with regard to
confessions and burden of proof which were impugned by the Human Rights
Committee of the United Nations in the matter of Nallaratnam Singarasa
(Communication No. 1033/ 2001), contrary to the view expressed by the
Committee to make the said sections compatible with the provisions of
the Covenant. In fact GOSL (the State Party) has not published the
views as requested by the Committee due to the intransigence and
neither released the complainant nor ordered retrial. Still many
suspects arrested under the Draconian PTA are languishing in the Sri
Lankan Prisons. In fact GOSL has made use of the Tsunami Devastation to
bring back emergency regulations into operations with additional powers
wherein any person authorised by the President could keep a suspect
under detention and take him from place to place upto seven days
without a warrant or detention order.
"The zero tolerance policy on torture proclaimed by Kadirgamar is
completely contrary to the factual position as only about 10 cases has
been filed in the High Courts under the Act against Torture degrading
and cruel acts No. 22 of 1994 and Torture and other Acts continues with
impunity."
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