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Catholic laywomen and doctors in Sri Lanka are demanding changes to the country's legal framework as they push to decriminalise abortion in the face of heavy opposition from local bishops.

The Feminist Catholic Network (FCN) recently signed a petition in support of proposed legal amendments that want to expand on current provisions in cases of rape, incest and serious fetal impairment.

The FCN insisted the church should support the push to modernize the law by allowing the medical termination of pregnancies in extenuating circumstances. These include rape, incest and pregnancies involving girls under 16, especially when the fetus is at risk of being seriously impaired and the woman's life is at risk.

Parliament is now scrutinizing cabinet-approved papers that call to legalize abortion when pregnancy results from a case of rape and the fetus is diagnosed as being congenitally malformed in a way that will certainly lead to death.

Sri Lankan bishops have responded by condemning the government for considering legalizing abortion under any circumstances.

"We are against any form of abortion because, according to Catholic teaching, life is sacred from the moment of conception," said Bishop Emmanuel Fernando of Mannar Diocese in Northwest Sri Lanka.

"We believe that from the moment of conception there is a human life," the bishop told ucanews.com.

"In the case of a rape that results in unwanted pregnancy, we would like to help with trauma counseling," he said.

"The Catholic Church runs a home for unwed mothers and usually there are counselors to help them face this [difficult] situation."

Christian groups have been campaigning to keep abortion outlawed for decades.

Over 100 activists who signed the petition on March 5 said the official position put forward by a few clergymen from the Catholic hierarchy does not represent the majority opinion of ordinary Catholics in the country.

"We strongly object to the campaign they have led against this bill and find its position antithetical to the call for radical justice and mercy that is found in the [four] Gospels," they said in a statement.

Sri Lankan police records from 2015 show that 80 percent of rape victims that year were girls under 16. (Photo by Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/AFP)

 Some doctors have also voiced their concerns.

"As doctors we are caught up in an extremely difficult situation. We scan every mother not once but several times," said Dr. Lakshmen Senanayake, who is not a Catholic.

"If there is a problem [with the fetus], we can identify it. Once this is identified, we as doctors have an obligation to tell this to the mothers," added Senanayake.

The obstetrician-gynaecologist served as the national coordinator of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) Initiative on Reducing Unsafe Abortions in Sri Lanka from 2005-2011.

"Our concern is the individual agony these parents are going through. When the helpless parents are asked what should be done, our hands are tied," she said.

Ermiza Tegal, a lawyer and female rights activist who handles family law and domestic violence, described Sri Lanka's abortion law, which dates back to 1883, as anachronistic.

She said Penal Code No. 2 of the original 1883 law and the Code of Criminal Procedure Act No. 15 from a newer law passed in 1979 are both badly out of date and should be amended to allow medical terminations of certain pregnancies.

Other locals thought leaders echoed similar views at a conference on the theological aspects of abortion held in the capital Colombo in the first week of March.

"We support the autonomy of women to make conscience-based decisions," said Anupama Ranawana, a Catholic researcher of religious political thought focusing on Buddhism, Catholicism and feminist theology.

"We find that the most powerful backing for the autonomy of women comes from the many women detailed throughout Scripture, not least Mother Mary," she added.

The FCN drew attention to a 1990 study which estimated that the country sees 125,000 to 175,000 induced abortions each year, most of which are performed illegally.

A subsequent study put the figure much higher at 658 induced abortions per day, giving an abortion ratio of 741 for every 1,000 live births.

However another study undertaken in 2007 calculated that around eight abortions took place for every 100 women that year.

Women's rights activists argue the law is unfair as it forces young women to seek out illegal abortion clinics that can put them at risk of serious injury and even death.

The mortality rate for those who underwent abortions in Sri Lanka in 2013 is 10 percent, statistics show, meaning that one in 10 women lost their lives attempting to terminate their pregnancy. That would make illegal abortions the third most common cause of death among pregnant women.

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed on Wednesday to promote bilateral cooperation on maritime security in the Indo-Pacific region.

During their meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office in Tokyo, Abe and Sirisena confirmed that the two countries will advance bilateral defense exchanges, with Japan assisting Sri Lanka in capacity building for maritime law enforcement.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe welcomed President Maithripala Sirisena to his residence yesterday, where they agreed to promote Tokyo's "Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy" and signed a memorandum of understanding for a 10.6 billion yen ($99.6 million) loan for health-related projects.

 "By working together, we will make the Indo-Pacific an international commons that offers peace and prosperity for any country without discrimination," Abe said at a joint press conference. Sirisena added that the two countries will deepen their existing partnership.

Sri Lanka will use the yen loan to build out national hospital facilities and encourage the use of medical devices like catheters. The funds will also be used to train doctors and other medical professionals to improve residents' health.

The two leaders also reaffirmed cooperation in upgrading the Indian Ocean country’s infrastructure, such as port facilities in Colombo, in an attempt to bolster connectivity in the region.

The agreements are part of Japan’s efforts to promote its “free and open Indo-Pacific strategy” aimed at ensuring stability from East Asia to Africa through cooperation with nations that share values such as freedom of navigation and the rule of law.

The two leaders also agreed on the necessity of keeping “maximum pressure” on North Korea to prod it to abandon its nuclear weapons and missiles. Prime Minister Abe requested Sirisena's help in resolving the longstanding issue of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea as well.

Buddhist Brigade (Bodu Bala Sena - BBS) chief Galagodaaththe Gnanasara was among several other Buddhist monks who had been invited to a series of meetings with the visiting Sri Lanka president.

“All of us of the business community were shocked to see the president and the racist monk together,” said a Sri Lankan exporter in Japan.

“The whole of the Sri Lankan business community deplores what happened in the hill country. We told that in a joint letter handed over to the president.”

'Spineless president'

The invitations to the Tokyo Imperial had been sent out by the Sri Lanka embassy in Tokyo for a “Community Gathering With the President”.

“There is no way that the embassy wasn’t aware of Gnanasara coming,” said a business leader who also attended the meeting at the invitation of the Sri Lanka mission.

Gnanasara in the company of (from L) SL ambassador to Japan Dhammika Ganganath, President Sirisena, Minister of International Trade Malik Samarawickrama & Minister of Foreign Affairs Tilak Marapana.

 “Gnanasara slams our president as spineless. How on earth can he be invited on the same stage to receive blessings? This is totally a political scam.”

“I had to pray so that I could control myself,” said another invitee.

President Sirisena and several key ministers on a five-day visit to Japan expect to woo investors to Sri Lanka.

“A Yen Loan Agreement between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is to be signed during the visit for implementing the Health and Medical Service Improvement Project,” said a statement from Sri Lanka’s ministry of foreign affairs

A spokesman for the Buddhist Brigade said that their leader G. Gnanasara is expected in the island by the 19th.

Meanwhile raising a few eyebrows prior to the tension in Kandy, Sirisena during a visit to Batticaloa had also reportedly visited the Chief Incumbent of the Sri Mangalaramaya Temple, Ampitiye Sumanarathana Thera. Sumanarathana Thera too is known as a monk with extremist views regarding the minorities of the country. While a video of one of his racist tirades against a Tamil government employee went viral in recent times the controversial monk was also seen alongside the leader of the Mahason Balakaya Amith Weerasinghe during the recent unrest in Kandy. Amith Weerasinghe has been identified as the main instigator of the recent violence perpetrated against Muslims in Kandy.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said yesterday that the government has no intention of banning Facebook, but certain measures will be taken and laws will be brought to ensure that it does not carry content aimed at disrupting communal and religious harmony.

The laws will provide legal powers to monitor and control social media usage restricting the contents raising communal and religious hatred and disharmony.

Many issues have arisen with the use of Facebook such as spreading fake news and ISIS terrorism propaganda, he said.

Both electronic and print media have to be abide by the laws of the country as well as media ethics. However, as signatories of universal human rights declarations, all countries are bound to respect freedom of expression. But, Facebook, Viber, Whatsapp are not subject to any such laws. Several governments are discussing what can be done to address this issue. On the other hand, there is no control of its use and we must enact laws to control it,”the PM said.

“I have informed the Foreign Affairs Ministry to discuss with representatives of these companies as well as other countries in our region which have the same issues that affected our country, to formulate a mechanism to overcome this problem. We took this decision to protect the country’s peace. We will soon remove the blockade on FB and other social media links.The Premier addressing the gathering after opening of a newly-constructed swimming pool at Isipathana College in Colombo said yesterday.

“We can see positive and negative aspects of the social media through the incidents in Kandy recently. Since a small number of hotels are operated in the Kandy city, people in the area use to rent out rooms of their homes to tourists for profit.The entire Kandy city has shown tremendous progress in tourism thanks to social media such as Facebook, Viber, Whatsapp and other links. The tourism industry in Kandy collapsed due to the ethnic hatred messages prompted by the social media during the riots in Digana and Teldeniya, he said.

“As a responsible government, we have a duty to take appropriate action in this regard. We did not want to ban social media. But there should be a mechanism to supervise these networks. We have also earlier informed the FB regarding these kind of activities, but they were slow to respond. However, a representative from FB will arrive in the country today to discuss these issues. In addition to this, we are discussing to formulate a mechanism to prevent the spreading of communal and religious hatred and disharmony. Both Law and Order Ministry and the Attorney General’s Department are working together to bring in new laws in this regard.

Currently, the UK has laws to curb spreading of communal and religious hatred. No one can create communal or religious hatred and disharmony. At the moment we are following international civil rights laws in addition to the normal laws in the country. Currently Germany, UK and Kenya has passed laws in controlling the social media.

“I was instrumental in introducing Internet to Sri Lankans in 1993.I signed an agreement with former US Vice President Al Gore, when I was the Prime Minister then to bring internet to Sri Lanka. There are positive aspects of the social media which directly affect our economy, education communication and tourism. But on the other hand it has negative effects like spreading religious and communal disharmony creating violence and riots among the communities.

On the instructions of the Security Forces, we had to block the social media because they were spreading hate speech and amplifying them.” False reports of ethnically motivated attacks circulating on the network has resulted in retaliatory violence. If we had not taken such measures the, the situation would have been worse. Due to this urgent measure, we have been able to lift the curfew within a short period,” he added.

Source : Daily News

Solar projects worth nearly US$ 1.4 billion in 15 countries were announced at the recent Founding Conference of the International Solar Alliance under Government of India’s concessional financing. An Indian Line of Credit for US $ 100 million was announced for undertaking solar projects in Sri Lanka, which includes development of 200, 000 rooftop solar units for low income families (for US$ 50 million) and setting up of rooftop solar in Government schools and colleges, hospitals and other Government establishments in Sri Lanka (for US $ 50 million).

ISA has been described by Prime Minister of India as the single most important global achievement after the Paris Accord on Climate Change. The first General Assembly of the ISA is expected to be held on the sidelines of the second edition of the Renewable Energy Global Investors Meet and Expo, in short REINVEST to be organized by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy of India in April 2018.

India has offered to meet ISA Secretariat expenses for initial five years. The Government of India has allotted five acres of land to ISA, a nice campus in Gurugram, Haryana and released a sum of US$ 20 million for creating a corpus fund, building infrastructure and meeting day to day recurring expenditure.

The ISA is conceived as a coalition of 121 solar resource rich countries (lying fully or partially between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn) to address their energy needs, through a common platform for collaboration, for achieving speed, scale and skills for deploying available solar technologies; facilitating strategic and collaborative solar R&D; and lowering the cost of finance for solar projects and capacity building.

Restrictions placed on the social media platform, Whatsapp would be removed by midnight today, said Secretary to the President, Austin Fernando.

The Whatsapp messaging service was partially restricted with the sharing of multimedia, videos and calls being banned on the platform since March 7.

This is the second social media platform to have the ban revoked with Tuesday night having the ban on Viber repealed.

Social media sites like Facebook and Instagram however continue to have the ban imposed.

The Fort Magistrate issued an arrest warrant for former Central Bank governor Arjuna Mahendran today in connection to the bond scam issue.

Meanwhile Owner of Perpetual Treasuries Ltd. Arjun Aloysius and CEO Kasun Palisena was further remanded till March 29 during the court proceedings today.

Transparency International Sri Lanka said today in a statement that TISL is alarmed by the continued blocking of social media and other communication tools on the orders of the government and called on the government to immediately reinstate access.

Speaking on the subject TISL Executive Director Asoka Obeyesekere noted, "the government must act immediately to remove the ban on social media and instead focus on holding those responsible for hate speech and inciting violence to account under the International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights (ICCPR) Act. Instead of blocking social media, the government should be using it as a communication tool", he added.

Furthermore, TISL stated that moves to regulate social media are contradictory to the government's stated commitment to the freedom of expression. They drew attention to the 100 Days manifesto of His Excellency President Maithripala Sirisena, who pledged then that "The Right to Freedom of Thought and Expression will be strengthened".

TISL said that any future steps that can be perceived as 'thought policing' would weaken the freedom of expression and should not be pursued.

The 9th ‘Yowun Puraya’ program is to be held on March 28 at the Nikaweratiya Agrarian Institute grounds. The program to be held on five consecutive days will see the attendance of 7000 youth, according to the Chairman of the National Youth Council, Eranda Weliange.

A number of programs for personality development, leadership workshops, youth camps and meetings will also be held.

The attending youth will be made aware of national reconciliation and on how to compromise, exchange experiences with the youth in the fields of youth development and engage in mutual activities through mutual understanding and co-existence.

Chairman of National Youth Services Council, Eranda Weleamage said that preparations are being made to conduct the program for the Youth Pioneer Program.

The new Mission Director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for Sri Lanka and Maldives, Reed J. Aeschliman, who assumed duties on March 5, 2018 arrived in Sri Lanka today, the US Embassy said.

Mr. Aeschliman's arrival corresponds with the start-up of several new initiatives and more than 4.5 billion Sri Lankan rupees in programs that advance youth employability, rule of law, and reconciliation in Sri Lanka.

"We are fortunate to have Mr. Aeschliman join the U.S. Embassy team as we celebrate 70 years of partnership between the United States and Sri Lanka," said U.S. Ambassador Atul Keshap.

Since 1956, the United States Government has provided more than $2 billion (approximately 300 billion LKR) in development and humanitarian assistance that has benefited Sri Lankans across the country. This assistance has made meaningful impact on inclusive economic growth, good governance reforms, and recovery from humanitarian crises.

"I am honored to work in partnership with the Government and people of Sri Lanka and Maldives to be more effective with U.S. development assistance, expand the assistance to the people who need it the most, and strengthen partnerships and cooperation with the United States," said Mr. Aeschliman.

Mr. Aeschliman has worked at USAID since 2000 and has served in the Philippines and Pacific Islands, Afghanistan, Cambodia, and India, managing the design and implementation of a full range of economic, democratic governance, environment, education, and infrastructure programs. His most recent prior assignment was in Washington where he served as Deputy Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Asia.

A group of Sri Lankan academics teaching in educational institutions abroad – and numbering about 50 – has written to condemn ongoing violence against Sri Lanka’s Muslim community, especially the “brutal attacks” perpetrated early March.

Issuing an open letter, they say: “We are outraged that the government has failed to act speedily and decisively to stop the violence and bring those responsible to justice. The government must act firmly to prevent more destruction and bloodshed.”

“The scale and nature of recent attacks on the Muslim community are the result of years of successive regimes in Sri Lanka pandering to chauvinist nationalists.”

The letter points out that targeted and organized attacks against Muslim communities in Ampara, Teldeniya, and Kandy are not isolated incidents, but must be seen within a longer history of attacks on Muslims in Sri Lanka, including wartime violence by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) against northern and eastern Muslims.

After the end of the war, majoritarian attacks against Muslims living in the East and South have escalated. In May 2014, Sinhala Buddhist nationalists attacked and burned the Muslim-owned store, Fashion Bug, and its head offices in Colombo. In June 2014, Sinhala Buddhist nationalists again carried out anti-Muslim riots in Aluthgama, Beruwala and other areas in the Kalutara District, the letter adds.

In 2017 alone, there were 20 documented incidents of violence against Muslims, including the September 2017 attack on a UNHRC shelter housing 31 Muslim Rohingya refugees in Colombo.

The academics also point out that Sinhala Buddhist monks led this last attack in direct violation of international human rights treaties on the protection of refugees, which Sri Lanka has ratified. In some of these instances, members of the police and security forces were present, but did nothing to halt the perpetrators or protect the victims.

“While some civil society organizations in Sri Lanka have condemned these orchestrated acts of violence, the government has failed to hold the responsible political and religious figures to account.

"Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), for example, openly propagates hate speech against Muslims, and promotes xenophobia, racism, and bigotry. Such actors do not operate in a vacuum; the ‘inaction’ of political authorities and the police against them is in fact an active intervention, encouraging groups like the BBS and Maha Sona Balakaya to act with impunity.’

“We, members of the Sri Lankan diaspora, and Sri Lankans living abroad, from all of the country’s diverse communities, stand in solidarity with our Muslim sisters and brothers. "We believe that declaring a state of emergency and curbing free media and social networks are not sustainable solutions to issues of equal rights and the protection of minorities,” the letter notes.

In the long run, such measures will only expand the repressive powers of the state. The government must take swift action to bring those responsible for anti-Muslim violence to justice. “We call on the government to hold accountable law enforcement and political authorities who have reneged on their responsibility to protect all members of the Sri Lankan community.”

“We also call on the government to move on long-term questions of constitutional reform that can lay the foundation for a future of peace with justice and security for all its citizens, including minorities.”

The signatories comprise: Vasuki Nesiah, New York University; Nimanthi Perera-Rajasingham, Colgate University; Mythri Jegathesan, Santa Clara University; Kanishka Goonewardena, University of Toronto; V.V. Ganeshananthan, University of Minnesota; Qadri Ismail, University of Minnesota; Sharika Thiranagama, Stanford University; Sonali Perera, City University of New York; Kitana Ananda, City University of New York; and Sanjeevi Nuhumal, Haverford College.

Others who have signed the letter comprise: Kathleen Fernando, Kenyon College; Kanchana Ruwanpura, University of Edinburgh; Pradeep Sangapala, University of Alberta; Arjun Guneratne, Macalester College; Amarnath Amarasingam, University of Waterloo; Arjini Nawal, Harvard University; Neil DeVotta, Wake Forest University; Nihal Perera, Ball State University; Sandya Hewamanne, University of Essex; Nira Wickramasinghe, Leiden University; Nalin Jayasena, Miami University; and Prashanth Kuganathan, Columbia University.

President Maithripala Sirisena, who is on a state visit to Japan, made an observation tour of a modern waste management centre in Shinagawa, Tokyo today (14), the Presidential Media Unit said.

President Sirisena also said that he would inquire about such projects in order to solve the garbage disposal problem in Sri Lanka and would seek the possibility of obtaining assistance from Japan.