HRF Monthly

UNHCR’s gratuitous advice on Sri Lankan refugees

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The concept of voluntary repatriation is the most preferred one by host nations, but it is also made sure that the consent for repatriation is not taken involuntarily. For Sri Lankan Tamil refugees, however, the most durable solution would be local integration.

THE United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in India is coy at its best and devious at its worst.

In a piece in The Hindu on February 16, Oscar Mundia, the Head of Mission, UNHCR in India hides more than he reveals as to its actual position relating to the long-term resettlement of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in India. Apart from wrong usage (or perhaps a Freudian slip) of the English language in describing young Sri Lanka Tamil refugees born and brought up in India as “cohorts”, he seems to infer that the refugees themselves seem to be undecided and, contrary to international refugee law, that the refugees could be sent back to Sri Lanka against their expressed wishes. He also makes a faux pas by referring to the Hill Country repatriates, who are not part of the UNHCR’s remit.

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HRF Monthly

Thirteenth amendment to Sri Lankan Constitution — No lessons learnt in 75 years

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The political implication of not implementing a proper federalist policy is the Tamils in Sri Lanka losing their voice and rights, thereby being subjected to further marginalisation. Every self-respecting Tamil in India and across the world should ask for nothing less than a federal Sri Lanka.

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ADDRESSING the Sri Lankan nation on its 75th Independence Day, its President Ranil Wickremesinghe on February 4 said he was determined to see maximum devolution of power to the provinces, but would not stand for the division of the country. He said that a cabinet sub-committee had been appointed to look into the unique issues faced by the people living in the north and the east of the country.

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HRF Monthly

Allahabad High Court order in Pilibhit extra-judicial killings case merits a substantive appeal

/ / HRF Monthly

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As early as 1993, the Supreme Court had castigated the Uttar Pradesh police. When the CBI authorities approached the local police as well as officers in the Home Department of the State Government, they did not receive the desired cooperation and case papers were not handed over to them.

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What was Allahabad High Court’s recent verdict on the Pilibhit encounter case of 1991?

ON December 15, 2022, the Allahabad High Court reduced the sentence of 47 policemen for killing ten Sikh men to seven years of rigorous imprisonment. The innocent Sikhs were killed in three incidents of extrajudicial executions (EJEs) in a single night in Uttar Pradesh’s Pilibhit district in 1991.

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HRF Monthly

India’s continued refusal to ratify U.N. Convention Against Torture lacks substance

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INTERNATIONAL LAW & WORLD AFFAIRS  — LIFE AND LIBERTY

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NHRC’s radio silence on the absence of express definition of torture in Indian law and jurisprudence is deafening.

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THE Working Group on the United Nations (‘UN’) Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (‘UPR’) held its review of India on November 10. The delegation of India was headed by the Solicitor General of India, Tushar Mehta. At its 16th meeting, held on November 16, the Working Group adopted the draft report on India.

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India’s continued refusal to ratify U.N. Convention Against Torture lacks substanceRead More »

HRF Monthly

India played out a false dichotomy by emphasising domestic law over human rights at the Universal Periodic Review

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GOVERNANCE AND POLICY

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India’s paranoia over the review of its human rights record by outside agencies reflects its insecurity, not  strength.

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THE Solicitor General of India, Tushar Mehta while presenting India’s fourth periodic report at the United Nations (‘UN’) Human Rights Council session in Geneva on November 10, stated that human rights defenders should conform to the law of land.

That is a no brainer. Unless, one had the moral courage of a Mahatma Gandhi, whose name Mehta is undoubtedly aware of, but is perhaps less conversant with Gandhiji’s teachings on the primacy of the moral law. “Gandhi’s sedition trial of 1922 was one that brought into sharp focus the conflict between obedience to the law of the land and obedience of one’s moral conscience in opposing an unjust law”, lawyer and activist Prashant Bhushan aptly said in a lecture on Gandhi Jayanti in 2020.

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HRF Monthly

The lack of compulsion to prove wrongdoing beyond a reasonable doubt is at the heart of the security laws’ enduring appeal

/ / HRF Monthly

SEDITION & UAPA

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The Indian State has conceived itself as a ‘security State’, and as the police apparatus is heavily overburdened, the fabricated arrests of members of minority communities are sacrifices made to create the appearance of relative safety and a protective State.

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THE Counter Terrorism Committee (‘CTC’) of the United Nations (‘UN’) Security Council met in New Delhi in the last week of last month. It adopted the Delhi Declaration which is State-centric, and had little concrete suggestions to protect and enhance citizens’ rights. The UN, as one wag underlined, was “nations united” against “people’s rights”.

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The lack of compulsion to prove wrongdoing beyond a reasonable doubt is at the heart of the security laws’ enduring appealRead More »

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