Sri Lanka court flays indiscriminate arrest of Tamils

Sri Lanka's Supreme Court has rapped the police for indiscriminately arresting Tamils in drives meant to nab Tamil Tiger suspects or their collaborators.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Sarath Silva Wednesday asked the police to formulate rules on detention, arrest and investigation of Tamils who might be suspected of being agents of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The LTTE has been waging an armed struggle to secure an independent Tamil state of Eelam in the north and east of Sri Lanka.

The Supreme Court said the rules for detention should be submitted to it March 4.

The order came on a fundamental rights petition filed by the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), a political party cum trade union representing Tamils of Indian origin in Sri Lanka.

Many Tamils arrested, detained or summoned to police stations in Sri Lanka during the now frequent anti-terrorist drives are Tamils of Indian origin who come from the tea and rubber plantations of central and south Sri Lanka and who have nothing to do with the Tamils in the war-torn northeast of the island.

On Jan 7, the Supreme Court had said it was a violation of the constitution to search houses without reasonable grounds. The court had come down particularly heavily on searches at night.

Counsel for the CWC M.A. Sumanthiran said in his submission that the police had gone to the extent of asking the Tamils of Modera, in north Colombo, to submit details of their bank accounts.

Tamils living in Maradana in central Colombo, who were waiting for their visas to go abroad for work, had been arrested. Subsequent to a bomb blast in Nugegoda, a suburb of Colombo, Nov 28 last year, Tamils living in lodges were picked up and sent to a maximum-security prison in Boosa in the island's south.

Eighty-two Tamils thus taken were still languishing in Boosa, he said. And more recently, 198 Tamils were arrested in Colombo.

Meanwhile, the media watchdog Free Media Movement (FMM) protested against the detention of the Associated Press photographer Gemunu Amarasinghe Feb 12 for taking pictures of a school for a story on the LTTE's threat to school children.

Parents standing in front of the Isipathana Mahavidyalaya (high school) near Tamil minister Douglas Devananda's office apprehended Amarasinghe on suspicion and handed him over the police, who detained him for two hours. Minister Devananda faces threats from the LTTE assassination squad.

On the same day, eight scribes were detained while covering an unruly protest at Galle.

The FMM pointed out that TV journalist Aravinda Sri Nissanka was arrested Jan 23 for taking shots of pedestrians crossing the road ignoring traffic signals.

Jaffna, in north Sri Lanka, has become one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists, according to media watchdog Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF).

"A wave of murders, kidnappings, threats and censorship has made it (Jaffna) one of the most dangerous places in the world for the press," RSF said Wednesday. Two Jaffna scribes were killed in 2007, it said.

According to statistics available with the UN, Sri Lanka has reported the largest number of disappearances.

Among the disappeared in 2007 were two journalists, Subramaniam Ramachandran of Thinakkural daily and Vadivel Nimalarajan of Uthayan daily, RSF said.

The Tigers also put tremendous pressure on journalists to toe their line, RSF noted. "The pressure might be less visible but at the same time every bit as effective," it said. The LTTE also "summons" Tamil journalists if it has to say something to them.

Source: newkerala.com