Dr. Visakesha Chandrasekara says that, lives of inmates may be life threatening at that time when pandemic such as the Corona is spreading, but this government has in a very reckless manner deprived them of their right to life.
He was stated that at a panel discussion organized by the Right Life Human Rights Organization and the Sri Lankan Collective Against Torture at the Janaka Hotel in Colombo (10) to mark the 72nd International Human Rights Day.
This year’s Human Rights Day was celebrated under the theme ‘Government and Our Responsibility on Illegal Killings’.
Speaking further he said that today we have to celebrate the International Human Rights Day with very unfortunately, because of the incident that took place in Mahara Prison. He points out that there are three types of inmates.
Dr. Visakesha Chandrasekara says that there is a big difference when dealing with prisoners in this country and that people look at it with a very lazy nature and it has been admitted that this is a very common thing and this is the feudal mentality of the majority.
In prisons today, remand prisons are three times more incarcerated than they can be, and he says it’s like being confined to an animal enclosure, and they get minimal facilities in terms of food, health, and so on.
He also pointed out that they were subjected to various forms of persecution in prisons as well as outside and in the courts, lowering their self-esteem and the culmination of which was seen in the Mahara prison.
As a civilized society we expect a prison, a detention center, to give a person who has been imprisoned for some guilty offense to be punished and rehabilitated for some time, but that does not happen today in the prison system, and groups come out of these prisons and commit a crime again. He says that a recent research has revealed that a person who is imprisoned for a crime in Sri Lanka is more likely to be imprisoned again.
Also, in most prisons, it is not the convicts but the suspects who are presumed to be innocent until they are convicted by a court of law. Mr. Chandrasekara said that they are being imprisoned to complete an investigation and to get a court order and that there are a large number of people who cannot come out without bail.
Dr. Nimalka Fernando, Human Rights Activist, Dr. Thus Wickramanayake, President of the Asian Human Rights Commission Attorney at Law Mr. Basil Fernando, Executive Director, Right to Life Human Rights Center Mr. Philip Dissanayake, and others were present as guests at the event. The program was conducted by Attorney-at-Law Dulan Dasanayake.