South Asia Citizens Web

For those of us who prefer to take refuge in comfortable illusions that this Presidency only hides a velvet hand in an iron glove (to mischievously twist that proverbial saying around), the motion of impeachment of the Chief Justice of Sri Lanka presented by 117 government MPs to the Speaker this week should dispel all such arrant foolishness. Whether the government goes ahead with the impeachment or not, let it be clearly said that the final nail in the metaphorical coffin of the institution of the judiciary in Sri Lanka is already hammered in.

In their attempt to assassinate girl-activist, Malala Yousufzai, has the Taliban inadvertently rescued the narrative of violence against women? Over the last three decades, Pakistan has been at the receiving end of donor-assisted campaigns and gender-empowerment awareness programmes on violence. These projects were sub-contracted to NGOs that had been set up by feminists who themselves, in the 1980s, had been involved in direct action activism on cases of violence. With the sponsorship of international development assistance, “women’s NGOs” have steadily embraced the concept and become advocates of linking VAW to neo-liberal development agendas. This has re-directed analysis and activism from its primary focus on survivors and perpetrators of violence. Instead, increasing attention and funding has led to a change that is more in tune with the UN and donor-preferred approach known as ‘Gender-Based Violence’ (GBV).

Please join the Rationalist Association (UK) in condemning the misuse of Indian law by several Catholic organisations to silence a campaigner against superstition. In March 2012, following his exposure of a supposed miracle at a Catholic Church in Mumbai as nothing more than the result of a leak, a complaint was lodged against Sanal Edamaruku by local Catholic organisations with the Mumbai police, who are now able to arrest him. He has been denied ’anticipatory’ bail which means if arrested he faces a long term in prison merely for explaining the science behind an apparent mystery.

The Sri Lankan government must immediately cease its assault on the independence of the judiciary, the ICJ said in a new report released today.
The 150-page report, Authority without Accountability: The Crisis of Impunity in Sri Lanka, documents how, and why, it has become nearly impossible for people who have suffered serious violations of their human rights to receive justice in Sri Lanka. Recent attacks on judicial officers and judges only highlight the systematic erosion of accountability mechanisms.

India’s celebrated playwright Girish Karnad made spirited secular critique of Nobel laureate V S Naipaul being awarded the Landmark and Literature Alive’s Lifetime Achievement Award on October 31 [2012]