{"id":116463,"date":"2021-07-24T16:29:43","date_gmt":"2021-07-24T23:29:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=116463"},"modified":"2021-07-24T16:29:43","modified_gmt":"2021-07-24T23:29:43","slug":"erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-20-c12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/07\/24\/erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-20-c12\/","title":{"rendered":"ERASING THE EELAM VICTORY Part 20 C12"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

(Continued\nfrom C11)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UN CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE (2017)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka ratified the UN Convention against Torture and Other\nCruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (UNCAT) Convention in\nJanuary 1994 and incorporated the Convention into Sri Lankan law by enacting\nthe \u2018Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment\nor Punishment Act, No. 22 of 1994\u2019, more commonly referred to as the\n\u2018Convention against Torture Act\u2019 (CAT ACT). \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the UN Convention against Torture, the act of torture is a\nseparate criminal office.  The Convention\nrestricts its application only to police and armed forces and other forces of\nthe state. Others like LTTE are exempt from the provisions of this Act. Which means\nthis Convention is intended only to control the armed forces and not on\nterrorists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 the \nConvention provided for  a UN\nCommittee against Torture made up of representatives of member states, set up\nto investigate allegations of torture in member states. All member\nstates are required to co-operate in the investigations of the committee. The\nConvention specifically states that “No exceptional circumstances\nwhatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political\ninstability or any other public emergency, may be cited in mitigation of any\nviolations\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nConvention gave its  member countries the\npower to arrest former or serving state officers suspected of committing\ntorture which took place in another member state. This means that officers of\nthe state will be hunted by the governments of foreign countries but terrorists\nwill not, observed critics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sri Lanka\nAct was better than the UN Convention, said analysts. It made torture a\nseparate non-bailable criminal offence punishable with a prison sentence of\nbetween 7 to 10 years and a fine. Most importantly, its application was not\nrestricted to officers of the state but to citizens of Sri Lanka and\nnon-citizens who are within the jurisdiction of Sri Lanka. The Act also\nprovides for extradition of a foreigner suspected of committing torture to his\nown country or another country asking for his extradition.  But these provisions were already in\noperation in the Sri Lankan legal system even before the Sri Lanka Act. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The UN\nprepared a second document, Optional Protocol of the International Convention\nagainst Torture\u201d which became effective in June 2006. Yahapalana government\nsigned this on 14 November 2017. The decision was implemented soon afterward on\n5 December and would come into force from 4 January 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Optional\nProtocol declared that a UN Subcommittee of the Committee against Torture would\nbe established. The members\nof this Subcommittee will serve not as representatives of their countries but\nin their individual capacity to ensure independence. Members of\nthis Subcommittee will visit member states and make recommendations to the\nrelevant governments. The Subcommittee must pay regular visits to places of\ntorture, and make confidential reports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Protocol stated that the Sub Committee has the right to choose\nthe places it wants to visit and the persons it wants to interview.  Objections to a visit to a particular place\nof detention may be made only on urgent and compelling grounds and that can\nonly be temporary. The existence of a state of emergency cannot be used as an\nobjection. Persons and organization must be free to communicate with the Sub\nCommittee. The state must not prevent this. The state must also not retaliate\nagainst these groups for having communicated information to the Subcommittee,\nwhether true or false.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Member states are obliged to give the Sub-committee access to\nplaces of detention and provide unrestricted access to all information\nconcerning the number of persons deprived of their liberty and places of\ndetention, and unrestricted access to all information referring to the\ntreatment of those persons, as well as their conditions of detention; as well\nas the opportunity to have their private interviews without witnesses, as well\nas with any other persons who the Sub-committee believes may provide\ninformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the\nOptional Protocol, each member state is also expected to set up at the domestic\nlevel one or more national preventive mechanisms. The state\nmust            guarantee the\nindependence of these mechanisms\u201d and their staff. The national mechanisms are\nto have unrestricted access to places of detention and information and exercise\nall the powers the international Subcommittee is entitled to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The UN Sub\nCommittee will maintain direct, and if necessary confidential, contact with the\nnational preventive mechanisms and offer them training and technical assistance.\nThe national mechanisms must be given unrestricted contacts with the\nSubcommittee, to send it information and to meet with it and no sanctions can\nbe applied to anybody who provides information, whether true or false to the\nnational mechanism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A special fund   set up\nwithin the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights of the UN   finances the activities of the Subcommittee\nof the Committee on Torture. This special fund is financed through \u2018voluntary\ncontributions\u2019 made by governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental\norganizations.  It is western governments\nthat provide funding to UN bodies for particular projects. One can see\nthe opportunity provided for physical intrusion by outsiders through the\nprovision of funds into activities of a country, commented Bandu de Silva.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus by\nacceding to this Optional Protocol, what we have done is to agree to give a\nbody functioning under the Office of the UN Human Rights Commissioner\nunrestricted access to all places of detention in Sri Lanka and to provide them\nwith all such information regardless of the situation prevailing in the country\nand to set up local mechanisms which can maintain direct links with the\ninternational Subcommittee and feed information to foreign parties without any\nrestriction, said Chandraprema. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Previous attempts to bring in foreign judges, investigators and\nprosecutors fell by the wayside due to stiff public opposition. The attempt to\nuse the Office of Missing Persons as an entry point also failed. The provision\nthat would have given the OMP unrestricted power to enter into agreements with\nforeign parties    was dropped also due to public opposition. Now\nthe government has signed this Optional Protocol to give their foreign masters\nan opportunity to intervene directly in Sri Lanka. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yahapalana government has, through this action   given foreign powers the opportunity to\nintervene directly in Sri Lanka\u2019s internal affairs. This shows\nthat if these foreign powers are unable to get in through the front door, they\nwill enter through a window or even a chink in the roof, said Chandraprema. The\nquestion is whether we need foreign parties nosing around in Sri Lanka and\nmaintaining fifth columns in this country.   (Continued in C12.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS (Continued from C11) UN CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE (2017) Sri Lanka ratified the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (UNCAT) Convention in January 1994 and incorporated the Convention into Sri Lankan law by enacting the \u2018Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kamalika-pieris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116463\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}