While the country is supposed to be a civilized democracy where the rule of law prevails, it is appalling that extra-judicial punishments of a medieval, barbaric nature are being inflicted on the poor – by persons in authority. Such individuals who have no legal authority to punish, take the law into their hands and administer punishments with impunity.
Three recent scandals
Three outrageous incidents have recently been reported. The first is the case of a Deputy Minister, Mervyn Silva tying a Samurdhi officer to a tree over the latter’s failure to attend a dengue prevention campaign in Kelaniya. The police looked on and only a woman present raised strong objections. The incident was widely publicized; Mervyn Silva was punished and then exonerated by a committee of the SLFP appointed to look into the issue.
The second incident that has been widely condemned was a horror story of a Sri Lankan housemaid in Saudi Arabia who had nails and needles inserted into her body allegedly by her employer. This case has been reported in all newspapers locally and attracted international attention. It has served to highlight the plight of Sri Lankan housemaids abroad who have no legal protection or basic rights.
The third incident, reported by the Asian Human Rights Commission is that of a Muslim woman aged 17 being summarily punished with 100 lashes by men of the mosque committee in Gokarella in the Kurunegala district. The ‘offence’ was that she had a child out of wedlock, and although she had subsequently married another man, she was harshly punished, leading to her taking treatment at the Mawatagama hospital. The report claims that the husband’s efforts to make an entry at the Gokarella police station failed. It is a fact that Moulavis of mosques in Sri Lanka have committees which can resort to such summary punishments of believers.
Summary punishments
These ‘punishments’ are a throwback to a feudal period during which kings, chiefs, priests and people in authority imposed summary punishments on those who failed to toe the line. In medieval Europe radical women were called witches and burnt at the stake. In more recent times, in post-World-War 2 France, women who were allegedly Nazi collaborators had their heads forcibly shaved. These acts – all extra-legal – are reminiscent of what Michel Foucault discusses in his work Discipline and Punish. He argues that ‘Discipline “makes” individuals; it is the specific technique of power that regards individuals both as objects and as instruments of its exercise.’ It is through disciplining and punishment that people are brought under control and the techniques of severe censure, shaming, and torture used by the mosque authorities, the politician, and Saudi employer happen because they treat their victims as objects and instruments of their power.
Blind Eye of Law Enforcement
What is significant is that both in the case of the Muslim woman and the Samurdhi officer, the law enforcement authority–namely the police–has committed a grave dereliction of duty. The constitution of Sri Lanka specifies, under article 11, that “No person shall be subject to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Moreover, article 12 (1) of the constitution states that “All persons are equal before the law and are entitled to the equal protection of the law.” So if people are entitled to equal protection under the law, what was the police doing? In the tree incident, a police officer was at the scene, but action was taken against Mervyn Silva only at a political level – not at the level of law enforcement. The Constitution, under article 28 casts a duty on “every person in Sri Lanka” (inter alia) “to uphold and defend the Constitution” [Art.28 (a)]; and “to respect the rights and freedoms of others” [Art.28 (e)]. The mosque committee and the politician were clearly in violation of this clause. Yet the police looked away, and in the case of the Muslim wife and husband, they were unable to lodge a complaint.
Denial/Justification
When reprimanded, the response by the perpetrators of violence against individuals has often been to issue denials, as in the case of Mervyn Silva and the Saudi housemaid. In cases such as punishments meted out through religious institutions such as mosque committees, the justification by Muslims is that they are enforcing correct morality among the believers. Communities may think they are maintaining discipline and good conduct to keep both men and women in line. What is more many men use this argument to justify violence in the home, in spite of the existence of a law against domestic violence.
Other Violent Actions
During times of peace, violence does not suddenly abate and many other instances of extra-legal violence, killings and acts of humiliation have recently occurred. Some notable examples being the chasing of a retarded man into the sea resulting in his drowning at Bambalapitiya; the assaults on university students by “raggers”; violence of teachers against school children; the persistence of violence in the home against women and children and the prevalence of punishments by humiliation in some institutions such as the forced shaving of heads of “offenders’. What is dangerous is that if this type of violent behaviour is not checked, it will continue unabated. “Copy cat” incidents of tying people to trees have already been reported in the newspapers and on TV.
During the decades of war in Sri Lanka, the brutalization of society and the culture of violence were blamed for the escalation of violence and the flouting of the rule of law. Today we have no excuses.
