Ceylon Today Editorial

Access Denied, Law is ignored

22 November 2016

Recently, Minister of Social Empowerment and Welfare, S.B. Dissanayake stressed that the Ministry of Social Empowerment and Welfare is to take legal action against the Local Bodies which approve plans of buildings which lack accessibility for people with disabilities.

As per the Gazette Notification 1,467/15, every public place should be accessible to all people including those who are with disability. The Gazette Notification specified that within three years public places should be made accessible to persons with disabilities and the deadline was extended to 17 October 2011 and extended again to 17 October 2014. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court ruling issued on 28 October 2011, stressed that every newly constructed building should have equal access.

Against this non-compliance of regulations, Dr. Ajith Perera filed a public interest petition in the Supreme Court in 2009, in the larger interests of the country. After two years, the Supreme Court gave a ruling saying that all parts of new buildings should comply with standards. The Court Order further stipulated that owners and heads of an establishment occupying such premises, even tenants are responsible to enforce the Court Order. It further said it is mandatory to first approve building plans with accessibility for all people.

As per the Supreme Court ruling which was issued on 28 October 2011, it was also stated that failure to comply with the regulation would be serious offence attracting punitive repercussions. Anybody experiencing hardships due to non-compliance with standards in the new buildings, as per indicators given by the Supreme Court, are at liberty to take legal action.

Sadly though, what we witness is ignoring the law by public as well as government institutions. Many new buildings are constructed without ensuring the equal access. Constructing a ramp to access a building and place brail signs in the building in order to ensure equal access and comply with the law is not considered a matter of importance. It appears that bribes given to those who approve plans in local bodies had ensured the approval of plans of buildings which do not have access to those who have disabilities.

The matter does not need any more baby-sitting or lagging. Stern legal action should be taken against those who had approved plans of buildings which do not have access to people with disabilities. In a way, non-compliance with the ruling of the Supreme Court can be considered contempt of Court which too is a serious offence.

25 years back, in USA, the government passed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The 1990 Act ensured that not only every public place, but also public transport is accessible to the people with disabilities. Although Sri Lanka has the laws in place, the implementation has not taken place which has violated human rights of the people with disabilities even when the law protects it.

This issue also reflects a far wider and important issue. That is the respect which the public has for the law. For a country to develop, it needs generation of people who respects the law of the country. Sadly, in Sri Lanka, people have forgotten the importance of the law. Starting from not using the zebra crossing to cross the road when it is few metres away to putting public property to personal use, people have ignored the law. For any society to develop and reach higher levels, the strong presence of the rule of law is very vital. It is high time that Sri Lankan public realizied the importance of respecting the law. That must be started from politicians and public servants.

In that context, the decision of the Ministry of Social Welfare and Empowerment is very vital. They must go ahead and take legal action against those who had violated the law. That will open the eyes of many of those who ignore the law.

Daily News Editorial

Media freedom; then and now

22 November 2016

Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa no doubt was a good friend of the media and still is. It is difficult to resist the charm and affability he oozes when in the company of media personnel. But when he says that the present government was intimidating the media and stifling media freedom, it is inevitable that his record vis-a-vis the media during the time of his Presidency will inevitably come under scrutiny. “We unreservedly condemn the attempt to stifle the media and to destroy the last vestiges of democracy”, Rajapaksa says, issuing a statement over an investigation currently being carried against a TV channel well known for its pro Rajapaksa bent.

Rajapaksa's statement comes in the backdrop of a revelation made by Law and Order and Southern Development Minister Sagala Ratnayaka in Parliament on Saturday. The Minister said; “Thirteen journalists have been killed from January 2006 to January 2015. One journalist had gone missing, 87 had been assaulted and 20 had been taken into custody during the same period”. Continuing further the Minister said four private media institutions had been attacked five times during the same period and evidence in connection to those incidents had been destroyed”.

No member of the Joint Opposition refuted the Minister's claims, inside or outside parliament. They cannot. They were part of the system at the time where threats and intimidation of the media were only one aspect of Rajapaksa misrule. But that is neither here nor there. The former President may have portrayed himself as the darling of the press, but his record vis-a-vis the media during his presidency is left much to be desired. Nay, it is a record that is stained with blood. The statistics revealed by Minister Ratnayaka only goes to confirm this.

Rajapaksa would do well to turn the searchlight inward and ask himself if there was “media freedom and democracy” during his tenure in office? Many in the fourth estate taking a dispassionate view would contend that media freedom was there only in name. There were numerous examples, as shown by the Minister, where journalists became an endangered species under Rajapaksa rule. They dare not cross the red line, lest they have visitors to their homes or work places. Investigative journalist Keith Noyar was abducted in a white van, tortured and dumped on the road with all the tell tale signs of the ordeal he underwent at the hands of his captors very much in evidence. Upali Tennakoon, the Editor of Rivira was similarly waylaid and assaulted with blunt weapons. Both journalists had to flee the country lest they be visited by a worse fate. No investigations were conducted into these two incidents, with the Rajapaksa's portrayal of himself as a friend of the journalists put to the test.

The fate that befell Sunday Leader Founder Editor Lasantha Wickrametunga, a close friend, or so it was said, of Mahinda Rajapaksa and journalist Prageeth Ekneligoda are two other instances where the state had a clear hand in the crime, with Wickrametunga killed in a High Security Zone swarming with uniformed men and Ekneligoda vanishing from the face of the earth on the eve of the 2010 Presidential Election. Ditto for the multiple attacks on the Sirasa studios and on the Udayan newspapers in Jaffna. This, under a leader who shed copious tears at the murder of journalist Richard De Soysa and used the episode for political advancement.

To the credit of this government, the oppressive climate that stifled the free media is no longer present. Media freedom, though not the most perfect, at least has been allowed to flourish under President Sirisena. Newspapers and television channels are today free to criticize the government with some editorials even going to the extent of casting aspersions on the Prime Minister by innuendo showing him in poor light. Ditto for a TV channel which is clearly working to a political agenda.

Rajapaksa, also in his statement, has accused the government of ‘attempting to destroy the last vestiges of democracy'. It is hard to think of a Lankan leader in recent times who kicked against all norms of democracy as did MR. It was the former President, who upon assuming power, rendered impotent all the independent commissions, the pillars in a democratic setup, established under the 17th Amendment, and in one fell swoop paralysed these commissions with the enactment of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. Not only that, the independence of the judiciary, a pre-requisite in a democracy, was undermined with the first woman Chief Justice in the country hounded out of office with the aid of a Kangaroo court trial by a Parliament Select Committee packed with Rajapaksa loyalists, all because she entered a judgement unfavourable to the government. Democracy was also compromised when the Attorney General's Department was taken under the wing of the Executive, dealing a blow to its independence as well as running roughshod on independent bodies like the Judicial Services Commission. The former President is therefore not the ideal choice to talk about media freedom and democracy.

The Island Editorial

Scribes as scapegoats

22 November 2016

 

A bad workman’s tools and the media have one thing in common; they get blamed for others’ failures. The Rajapaksa government vilified its critics as ‘traitors’ and the present administration brands all dissenters ‘racists’.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe launched into a tirade against the media the other day in Parliament as usual. He is apparently under the impression that the raison d’être of the media is to devise ways and means of scuttling the government’s efforts to achieve what it described as national reconciliation. He seems to think hell is now empty because all the devils have crept into the local media institutions. He, however, is not alone in bashing the media.

Some lesser politicians, intoxicated with power, also indulge in inveighing against the media, taking as they do cover behind their parliamentary privileges. The question is what those who are so keen to bring about reconciliation did to prevent the 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom backed by the then UNP government of which they were prominent members. They did not utter a word in protest when the majestic Jaffna bibliotheca packed with rare, invaluable, weighty tomes was burnt down, did they? They also did not lift a finger to help the Tamils, the Muslims and the Sinhalese suffering at the hands of LTTE terrorists. Instead, they chose to lick Prabhakaran’s boots and unflinchingly compromised national security and public safety in the name of a fragile truce so as to remain in power. That has been reconciliation according to them.

The Rajapaksas who were blamed for goon attacks on the media while they were in power have taken up cudgels for journalists. It was in their heyday that journalists such as Lasantha Wickrematunga were brutally murdered, and MTV, Siyatha TV and the printing facilities of The Sunday Leader and the Udayan came under arson attacks. Adding insult to injury, President Mahinda Rajapaksa appointed Mervyn Silva his Media Minister. The media fought quite a battle to knock some sense into Rajapaksa, who reluctantly changed his mind. We pointed out in this space that the Arachchi would have to take the blame for what his ferocious pet dog was doing. Silva also specialised in character assassination and would indulge in vilifying the then key Opposition figures with impunity to please his political bosses. Public resentment welled up and found expression in a massive protest vote which dislodged the Rajapaksa regime last year. Rajapaksa’s pet dog is now snapping at his own feet!

Minister of Law and Order Sagala Ratnayake told Parliament on Saturday that 15 journalists had been killed between 2006 and 2015. This is a damning indictment on the Joint Opposition, which is now championing media freedom and democracy. Similarly, the UNP must explain why it has not ordered a probe into the then Chief Opposition Whip and UNP MP Joseph Michael Perera’s special statement in Parliament in July, 2008 that the attacks on journalists under the Rajapaksa government were carried out by a special army team controlled by the then Army Commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka, who is now a minister of the ‘yahapalana’ government!

The government’s anti media frenzy has taken a turn for the worse. A television station has been closed down and the ground is apparently being prepared for throttling another on some flimsy pretext. Those who have no qualms about justifying the illegal sale of MPs’ duty free vehicle permits and mega bond scams, releasing terrorists and manipulating the judiciary to take ruling party politicians off the hook have made an issue of alleged violations of the terms of licences issued to television stations!

The Rajapaksas’ efforts to justify their undemocratic actions such as the incarceration of the former war winning Army Chief Fonseka and the ‘impeachment’ of the then Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake came a cropper. Likewise, the discerning public won’t buy into claims being made to justify dictatorial actions of the incumbent government on a witch hunt against its critics. The government’s ability to muster a two-thirds majority in Parliament by showering bribes on MPs in the form of ministerial posts, cars, plum jobs for their kith and kin should not be confused with popular support. The Rajapaksa government, too, had a two-thirds majority in the House, but it came crashing down, didn’t it?

The government finds itself in the dock and people will deliver their verdict at a future election. It may postpone local government elections, but it will have to hold them eventually.