Shreen Saroor Short Documentary

INTERNATIONAL: Women: Leaders of Peace

Shreen Abdul Saroor has experienced war and forced displacement. She grew up surrounded by violence in Sri Lanka, where Tamil militants expelled Muslims from the north in 1990, forcing her family to escape their Mannar Island home.

She understands the costs of war and, in particular, the vulnerability of women.

“The safety of women and girls has been one of the casualties of the long war in Sri Lanka,” she has said. “Soldiers and members of paramilitary groups rape women with impunity. Rape has been used as a tool to torture political detainees.”

Not one to sit by idly, Shreen formed two organizations to assist women affected by conflict — and, by extension, to help the population at large: Sri Lanka’s Mannar Women’s Development Federation, which provides microcredit and education to Muslim and Tamil women, and Mannar Women for Human Rights and Democracy. Shreen knows that there cannot be true, lasting peace without the participation of informed and civically engaged women.

On September 21, World Peace Day, we at Search for Common Ground saluted Shreen along with three other women — Indonesia’s Electronita Duan, Nepal’s Purna Shova Chitrakar and Timor-Leste’s Filomena Barros dos Reis — who are receiving this year’s inaugural N-Peace Awards. Search for Common Ground is working with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to implement these N-Peacehonors — recognizing those who “Engage for Peace, Equality, Access, Community and Empowerment”– which were established to acknowledge that women are often in the frontlines of conflict, but rarely make the headlines. Their efforts toward building peace and creating cohesion in their communities are too many times overlooked.

Today, we want these women in the headlines.

Electronita has been involved in numerous programs to empower women in Indonesia and helped develop Politeknik Perdamaian Halamahera, an institute of higher education for those whose studies were interrupted by conflict. Electronita knew that normalcy could never return to conflict zones without a skilled and educated population.

Purna, among other activities, created the Ban Landmines Campaign Nepal (NCBL) in 1995 to promote an international ban on the use, production, transfer and stockpile of landmines. Purna worked to teach families, students and teachers about the risks of landmines in their communities, especially in rural areas. She often had to struggle to reduce mines in the face of opposition, continued conflict and arson. She worked tirelessly to outlaw these indiscriminate weapons of war and in June of this year Nepal was declared landmine free.

A human rights and justice activist, Filomena is a project coordinator for peace building development with the Asia Pacific Support Collective in Timor-Leste, a country that is continuing to rebuild and overcome its tragic history. Even before Timor-Leste secured its independence, she worked tirelessly to ensure a credible truth and reconciliation process for her country and to ensure that human rights are protected, sometimes dressing as a nun and carrying religious material to protect her true purpose in documenting horrific human rights violations.

Each of these women has helped her community get closer to peace, security and normalcy. Moreover, they have empowered more women to do the same.

At Search for Common Ground, we believe strongly in the positive roles that women can play in their communities and in compassionate leadership for the whole. SFCG recognizes that war has a disproportionate impact on women and girls, and their potential for sustaining peace often goes unrealized and untapped.

Working with governments, women’s organizations and individuals to expand women’s political participation throughout the world, particularly in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, we are training women politicians in leadership skills and use of media, and women mediators for peaceful settlement of election results. We are encouraging women to engage as local and national leaders through economic training, participatory theater, peace forums and dialogues. In addition, we convene women for conferences on empowerment, bolstering local, national and regional networks of women dedicated to conflict transformation.

Women, who tend to be more inclusive in their approach and represent slightly more than half the world’s population, are essential to lasting peace and secure communities. It is only by empowering women and giving them a place at the table that we can hope to find solutions to conflict that last.

Source: Huffington Post Date: September 26, 2011

Theme: Participation – General, Violence Against Women – General

Sri Lanka must release thousands being held under repressive laws

9 March 2011

Amnesty International has called on the Sri Lankan government to immediately release thousands of people currently being held in detention without charge or trial and to amend its repressive anti-terrorism laws to conform to international standards.

An Amnesty International briefing paper, Forgotten Prisoners, released on Wednesday, highlights how some of those detained are being held secretly where they are vulnerable to a range of abuses, including torture or being killed in custody.

More than 1,900 people already arrested and detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) remain in custody pending investigations, according to the last relevant official statements from May 2010.

“Sri Lanka’s so-called national security laws, and in particular the PTA, are being used to harass, intimidate and punish critical voices,” said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific Director.

“Thousands of people are languishing in detention without charge or trial under these laws, outside even the protections offered by the Sri Lankan legal system and in clear violation of recognised international human rights standards.”

Sri Lanka has been under a state of emergency almost continually since 1971, and successive governments have used national security as an excuse to introduce a range of broad of emergency regulations.

This has led to the erosion and even suspension of people’s rights to freedom of thought, conscience and expression, as well as their right to live free from arbitrary arrest and detention.

The national security laws grant state authorities sweeping powers of detention and permit people to be held in secret locations. Security agents, often without proper uniforms or identification, can detain and hold suspects for months or years without a warrant or being produced before a magistrate.

“Amnesty International recognizes the right and duty of the Sri Lankan government to protect its citizens from violence by armed groups, but these laws, and in particular the PTA, are too often abusive and too rarely result in proper convictions of alleged wrongdoers,” said Sam Zarifi.

“Despite the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in May 2009, the government has failed to demonstrate its commitment to human rights and the rule of law by getting rid of the PTA.”

Amnesty International will again be raising its concerns about Sri Lanka’s emergency laws at a 9 March session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, including at a seminar about the laws and their application that will include lawyers from Sri Lanka.

Source : AI-London

Malathi Kalpana Ambros =Kavi=

Kaviya =Ajith C Herath=

The Whispering North

The wind blows from north  still whispers,

While the soft voices mourned, fade and disperse.

Corpses  unburied, immerse in unknown oceans,

Curse upon thousands of  Gods and hundreds of  nations

Dead, wounded, scattered limbs and tents burning

Remained upon the massacred village

Amidst Dreadful screamings, Waves of killing and raping

Stormed, and bandits start to pillage.

The  formless shadows of  Children, women and Elders

With bleeding wounds and worn old decaying tatters

Lie begirt by despair, barbwires  and murders

No Miracle nor blessed,  surviving from the barrages

Their Flesh and blood are still suck by the savages

The  supremacist  totem engraved on female corpses

Decorates the ceremonial nights of  demoniac soldiers.

And  the  Adrenalin overflows with heroic sperms,

While  a sinister smoke ascending over dark Canopies.

But, the wind blows from north still whispers.

Ajith C. Herath

Kaviya =Ajith Parakum Jayasinghe=

Lasantha Wikcramathunga Memorial Rally

Platform for Freedom met at the Town Hall in Negombo Sinhala

Mano Ganeshan, the leader of Western People’s Front(WPF) and Colombo district parliamentarian

Part 01

Part 02

Part 03

Jayathilaka Bandara

Thirumavalavan demands white paper on genocide of Tamils

Mahesh Munasinghe =Kaviya=

Mahesh Munasinghe =Kaviya=

Mahesh Munasinghe =Kaviya=

Mahesh Munasinghe =Kaviya=

A single source conflict

Indian correspondents based in Sri Lanka were mindful of the sourcing problem created by the fact that the war zone was out of bounds to the press. ADITI RAVI and SEVANTI NINAN scan one month’s coverage in five newspapers.

The Hoot did a one month monitoring of six English newspapers in India earlier this year when the Sri Lankan army was closing in on the LTTE, to look at the extent and dimensions of the coverage, and the number of perspectives reflected. The period of monitoring was January 24 to February 24, 2009.

The coverage is  a reflection of  how much India’s domestic politics is entwined with the conflict in Sri Lanka, particularly that of the state of Tamil Nadu. Perhaps primarily for this reason the Hindu’s coverage, headquartered as the paper is in TN, was the most voluminous.

The newspapers taken were  The Indian Express, The Hindu, The Times of India,  The Hindustan Times and Mail Today.

Research: ADITI RAVI

Analysis: SEVANTI NINAN.

Tracking  the mainstream Indian press at a stage this year  when the Sri Lankan army had begun closing in on the Tigers, is illuminating in some ways. First, a story unfolding over one month had two points of origin, Sri Lanka and India. Where Sri Lanka was concerned, this is overwhelmingly a single-source story, despite the easy availability of  Tamilnet, the website which gives the LTTE’s version of events.  The primary source of information as the tragedy of a trapped citizenry unfolded, was the Sri Lankan government and military.

Secondly, where India is concerned, this is a North-South story. Northern newspapers certainly have to take note of a state and its chief minister working themselves into an emotional frenzy over developments affecting the Tamil population in Sri Lanka. But they focus when they can much more on “India’s” response, based as they are in Delhi. What gets Tamil Nadu space in the national press, particularly in the tabloid Mail Today, is the self immolations. The Hindu has such voluminous, multi-dimensional coverage, you scarcely notice its coverage of cases of self immolation in Tamil Nadu, which grew in number with the Sri Lanka army’s advance into the LTTE held areas.  The Hindu being primarily a Southern paper, has had by far the most coverage, and continuing coverage from Chennai, Delhi and Colombo, since it has a correspondent in that country. On at least 12 days over the month the number of small, medium  and big stories carried ranged from 4 to 7 a day.

In statistical terms the Hindu and the Times of India, which also has an edition in Chennai, led the coverage.

NEWSPAPER	NO. OF STORIES
The Hindu The Times of India The Hindustan Times Indian Express Mail Today	111 104 81 60 57 45

Newspaper	No. of Page 1 stories
Hindu The Times of India The Hindustan Times Indian Express Mail Today	15 stories, 2 briefs 5 stories, 6 briefs 7 4 stories, 2 briefs none

Newspaper	No of Editorials/Comment
The Hindu The Times of India The Hindustan Times Indian Express Mail Today	2, one op-ed 1 4, one op ed 2 none

On most days, the choice of coverage and pictures was fairly identical.  Overall all papers were informative, with the most comprehensive chronology being provided by the Hindustan Times on February 2nd, when it traced the milestones in this war, beginning with the Act passed in parliament in 1956, making Sinhala the only official language.

Indian correspondents based in Sri Lanka were mindful of the sourcing problem created by the fact that the war zone was out of bounds to the press. Briefings were by the Sri Lanka military personnel, or ministers, or diplomatic sources. The singular exception, occasionally was the odd  UN official who would talk to reporters about what they were witnessing.

B Murlidhar Reddy of the Hindu handled this on most days by beginning his account with the word ‘claimed’. He would also quote Tamilnet wherever possible, sometimes in an obligatory way, at much less length, to balance the account.  But he was  the only correspondent who tried to  systematically balance his reporting. The government-LTTE   conflict was complicated by the fact that  the “other side” was a terrorist organization. Journalists hesitated to give their version big play. Not surprisingly, on most days the two versions were totally contradictory.

For instance, on February 11, 2009  the Hindustan Times carried a report by its Colombo correspondent Sutirtho Patronobis titled “19 civilians killed in Lanka”. The story gave both versions: the army’s allegations that the LTTE had fired on civilians attempting to cross over, and  the Tigers’ allegations that 38 civilians were killed in Sri Lankan army shelling. However, the same day the PTI’s TV Sriram reported only the military version, which the Indian Express carried. The Times of India’s correspondent K Venkataramanan used an interview with a Colombo based human rights organization to get across a  picture of the truth regarding civilian deaths. The paper carried it on its editorial page. (February 2, 09).

Patronobis being the only Indian  correspondent in Sri Lanka who wrote a newsletter during this period, (‘Sleepless in Sri Lanka’) was also able to provide commentary outside of news reports on the problems aid workers and journalists faced during the fighting.

Editorial comment across Indian newspapers was more or less on the same lines, urging the Sri Lanka government  to display sagacity in handling the post- Tamil Tigers challenge regarding devolution of power. The most outspoken criticism of Sinhala chauvinism and the dangers of perpetuating it after the war came in an op-ed article in the Hindustan Times by Ramchandra Guha, “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

This period of monitoring saw frequent use of the term ‘endgame’, with a  question mark. The two and half months which have passed since the end of the monitoring period show how prolonged the predicted endgame has been.

Source : http://www.thehoot.org

NEWSPAPER	NO. OF STORIES
The Hindu The Times of India The Hindustan Times Indian Express Mail Today	111 104 81 60 57 45

Newspaper	No. of Page 1 stories
Hindu The Times of India The Hindustan Times Indian Express Mail Today	15 stories, 2 briefs 5 stories, 6 briefs 7 4 stories, 2 briefs none

Newspaper	No of Editorials/Comment
The Hindu The Times of India The Hindustan Times Indian Express Mail Today	2, one op-ed 1 4, one op ed 2 non e

Mahesh Munasinghe =Kaviya=

Sri Lanka’s propaganda war hits crescendo