SRI LANKA: A woman is arbitrarily detained

Dear Secretary of Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission,

SRI LANKA: More than forty months' arbitrary detention of a woman without trial must end immediately

Name of victim: Anthony Chandra, aged 37, living in Ratwatte lower division, Ukuwela in Matale District

Alleged perpetrators:
1. Police Officers of the Terrorism Investigations Department (TID) of Kandy district

2. Police Officers of Matale district
3. Magistrates of Kandy, Panwila and Matale districts

Date of arrest: 10 August 2008
Place of arbitrary detention: Kandy Remand Prison
I am writing to voice my deep concern regarding a prolonged arbitrary detention of a woman, who happens to be a mother of three minor aged girls, for forty months in the remand prison in Kandy without an access to fair trial. The victim has been identified as Ms. Anthony Chandra. She was illegally arrested by the Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) while there was no specific charge against her although the police had filed 12 fabricated charges under the Prevention of Terrorism Act one after another. I demand that Ms. Anthony Chandra must be released immediately from the arbitrary detention and the fabricated charges against her must be dropped as far as she has not given access to fair trial.

According to the information I have received from the Asian Human Rights Commission that, Ms. Anthony Chandra's husband Mr. Muttusamy Raj remained under surveillance of the Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) of the police who suspected Muttusamy as a member of the Liberation of Tamil Tigers Elam (LTTE). At one stage Muttusamy fled from the country in abroad. Subsequently, the TID officers, who followed him, failed to relocate and capture him.

I have learned that the TID officers of Kandy district arrested Muttusamy's wife Ms. Anthony Chandra on 10 August 2008. They detained her for eight months at the Kandy TID section at the Kandy police. She was produced before the Matale Magistrate Court on 13 May 2009 for bringing in remand at the Raja Veediya remand prison. Chandra has been in the remand prison until now.

I am aware that the TID officers filed 12 cases against Chandra and right now she has got 7 cases being called in every 14 days. In Panwila Magistrate Court 3 cases, in Kandy Magistrate Court 3 cases and at the Matale Magistrate Court 1 case against her. According to Chandra, all of the 12 cases are fabricated charges but charges are of very serious in nature as registered under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).

I have learned that Chandra is repeatedly being refused bail by the Courts and has been languishing only in the remand prison for the last two years while her actual period of detention has already passed forty months. Chandra has never been informed about the reason for her arrest and the charges made against her. She was never taken for a trial before a court and has been languishing in Prison for no reason. I question why the authorities have denied Chandra from her fundamental right to have access to a fair trial?

I am informed that Chandra has suffered severe forms of torture during her detention at the TID branch of the Kandy police station and at the remand prison. She was interrogated almost every night while at the TID branch. The interrogators threatened her of possible rape and murder if she refuses to tell her husband's whereabouts to the police.

I know that Anthony Chandra is a mother of three girl children aged six, nine and eleven years respectively. All the children now live with their grandmother (Chandra's mother-in-law) in absence of their parents. The police officers, by keeping Chandra under prolonged detention, have been denying the children's right to receive adequate motherly cares without any reasonable grounds.

In light of the above information, I urge the Sri Lankan authorities to conduct a thorough investigation by a credible judicial body excluding the police, who are the alleged perpetrators in arresting and detaining Chandra arbitrarily. All the perpetrators must be brought to book for their lawless actions and prosecuted thereby under the laws of the land. The victim should be afforded with adequate compensation for the torture and arbitrary detention she has been sustaining for last forty months now.

Yours sincerely,
William Nicholas Gomes
Bangladesh