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URGENT ACTION URGENT ACTION URGENT ACTION URGENT
ACTION URGENT ACTION
ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION - URGENT
APPEALS PROGRAM
31 January 2002
-----------------------------------------------------------
UA-06-2002: Tamil woman detained without charge for
almost four years
SRI LANKA: Denial of due process rights; long
detention without trial
-----------------------------------------------------------
We wish to alert you to a case of serious miscarriage
of justice in Sri
Lanka. A young Tamil woman, Ms. Victor Joyce
Scholastica, has been
imprisoned for almost four years under the Prevention
of Terrorism Act
on
the vague charge that she had allegedly "made a sign
or a gesture which
could be a sign, to two purported accomplices". Her
family believes
that
she is being held in prison as a substitute prisoner
for her former
fiance,
who is not in the country.
FACTS OF THE CASE
Ms. Scholastica was arrested in Vavuniya by the
Criminal Investigation
Department (CID) in Kandy on about April 8, 1998, and
is being held in
the
Welikada Prison. Since her arrest, there have been no
direct legal
charges
made against her. She has been produced before high
courts 17 times
with
constant delays. But the date for a trial has yet to
be fixed. When
the
case was called for the seventeenth time on
06.02.2001, it was yet
again
postponed until Feburary 2002, condemning the poor
woman to languish in
jail for a whole year longer.
Before her arrest, Ms. Scholastica, who was 29 at the
time of her
arrest,
worked in the post office in Gurunagar on the Jaffna
Peninsula. She was
displaced by a military operation in Jaffna in 1996,
came by boat to
Vanni
and stayed with the Rev. Anton Alexander of the
Seventh Day Adventist
Church in Vavuniya. She was indicted in the High Court
in Kandy on June
11,
1999 (case No. 1288/1999)
BACKGROUND
We have appealed to you many times to put pressure on
the prosecutions
system in Sri Lanka for fundamental reform so that
cases such as this
no
longer occur. Your efforts are finally paying off, as
there is now
some
debate and pressure building within Sri Lanka,
especially regarding
this
case of Ms. Scholastica. The following is from a
letter to the editor
of
The Island (Sri Lankan newspaper) by Basil Fernando,
in response to
yesterday's editorial on the case of Ms. Scholastica:
"The inhumane suffering experienced by those who seek
justice in the
current system is difficult to describe..... However,
delays are tied
to a
much deeper malaise of the system. Some make profit
out of the system's
failures and others are too frustrated and hence
suffer in silence. If
all
instances of injustice caused by the system are
brought to public
notice,
then a public debate capable of generating adequate
pressure to force
changes may take place. We may be able to overcome
sufferings caused to
us
by our very primitive justice administration system.
In many countries
in
Asia itself things have changed a great deal."
SUGGESTED ACTION
Please write to the Attorney General, with copies to
the Prime Minister
and
the Minister for Justice in Sri Lanka and ask that Ms.
Scholastica be
released immediately pending her trial, and that no
further
postponement of
her case take place.
SAMPLE LETTER
Dear Attorney General
Re: Case of Ms. Victor Joyce Scholastica, Denial of
Due Process Rights;
Long Detention without Trial (case No. 1288/1999 of
the High Court in
Kandy)
I am writing to express my concern about the ongoing
detention in
Welikada
Prison of Ms. Victor Joyce Scholastica, a Tamil woman
who was arrested
on
about April 8, 1998, in Vavuniya by the Criminal
Investigation
Department
(CID) in Kandy. Since she was arrested, no legal
charges have been made
against her, and her case has been postponed some
seventeen times. Such
delays defy Ms. Scholastica's human rights and human
dignity. No person
should be left to languish in prison for almost four
years without
formal
charge nor an opportunity to have their case heard in
a court of law.
Reform of the prosections system which allows such
inhumanity is long
overdue. I urge you to immediately release her pending
her trial and to
ensure that no further postponements take place in her
case.
Thank you for your expeditious attention to this
matter.
Yours Sincerely
________________
CC. Prime Minister Wickremasinghe
Justice Minister Lokubandara
------------------------------------------------------------------
SEND APPEALS TO:
Hon. Mr. K.C. Kamalasabesan
Attorney General
Attorney - General's Department
Colombo 12
SRI LANKA
Fax: +941 436 421
SALUTATION: Dear Attorney General
SEND A COPY OF YOUR LETTER TO:
Honorable Prime-Minister
Mr. Ranil Wickremasinghe
Cambridge Place
Colombo-7
Tel/Fax. 941-682905
Email: ranilwickremesinghe@www.com
Mr. W. J. M. Lokubandara
Minister for Justice
Sri Lanka
FAX: +(941) 323-730
Dear Minister Lokubandara
*** Please send a copy of your letter to AHRC Urgent
Appeals:
Email:
Fax: +(852) - 26986367
Please contact the Urgent Appeals coordinator if you
require more
information or wish to report human rights violations.
===========================================================
AHRC Urgent Appeals Programme
Asian Human Rights Commission
Unit D, 7th Floor, Mongkok Commercial Centre,
16 - 16B Argyle Street, Kowloon, HONGKONG
Tel: +(852) - 2698-6339
Fax: +(852) - 2698-6367
E-mail: ua@ahrchk.org
Please contact the AHRC Urgent Appeals Coordinator if
you require
further information or to make requests for further
appeals.
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