The protest statements and comments made to date, of Sudar Oli editor N. Vidhyatharan’s arrest last Thursday, have focused attention on one aspect: the mode and manner of his arrest, mainly on the failure to follow accepted legal procedure and on the use of excessive force. They have failed to take into account the fact that, the arrest was made during the funeral of his close relative.

The statement of the Sri Lanka Press Institute (SLPI) states, “If the editor was needed by police, for purposes of an investigation, he or, indeed any other citizen, should have been told why he was required, shown the Magistrate’s warrant permitting the arrest, and taken away without the rough handling that was evident. The method used was, to say the least, deplorable.”

The legal procedure to be followed by the police, when arresting a person under Emergency Regulations, was laid down by the Presidential Directive titled Protecting “Fundamental Rights of Persons Arrested and or Detained”, issued on July 7, 2006, which says that, the arresting officer should identify himself to the person to be arrested, stating reasons for the arrest.

Those acquainted with Sri Lanka’s recent history are aware such directives are issued to silence international criticism of Human Rights (HR) violations and not for implementation. That had been the practice since J.R. Jayewardene’s time. I have personally experienced that strategy during President Ranasinghe Premadasa’s rule, when I was associated with the Government Information Department, to do one of his projects.

An international outcry broke out over the manner in which Premadasa curbed the JVP revolt, and the matter was raised at the UN HR Commission in Geneva. Premadasa, who sent a high powered delegation to defend the government, decided to provide it with a document, to help the delegates present their case. The Information Department was given the task of preparing the report. I was a member of the group that prepared that report titled: “Status Report: HR situation in Sri Lanka”.

The report gave the history of HR in Sri Lanka, beginning with what the four major religions, practised in Sri Lanka, say about them, how they are guaranteed by the Constitution, the legal enactments which protect them, and the regulations and presidential directives which guide their implementation. We also included the pious presidential pronouncements on HR.

We gave the final document to Premadasa for his approval. He went through and said, “Excellent.”  Then he said, “You have not answered the question they are going to ask in Geneva.”  We looked at him, perplexed.  He said, “They will ask what action the government had taken against the police officers who had been accused of committing the excess.”

“But the government has not taken any action against anyone” we answered.

He smiled and gave the names of those who were under criticism, and said, “Take it down” and dictated the answer. “The government will soon initiate action against the police officers accused of committing excesses. Instructions have been given to the law officers to explore the possibility of instituting action against them.”

The paragraph was added to the document and was carefully leaked to the international news agencies. They published the story of the government exploring the possibility of taking action against the errant officers. The international criticism was silenced and the status report was quietly forgotten.

The hurting aspect of the Vidhyatharan incident was that the police chose to arrest him while he was at the funeral of a close relative. According to eyewitness accounts, Vidhyatharan and his family reached the funeral parlour of Mahinda Florists at 9.30 a.m. They joined Sudar Oli publisher, E. Sarawanapawan, who was standing by the body, when three armed policemen entered. Vidhyatharan is Sarawanapavan’s brother-in-law.

One of them started pulling Vidhyatharan out of the funeral parlour. What followed has been fairly well documented in the Tamil and English newspapers.

The fact that the police chose the funeral house to arrest Vidhyatharan, particularly, when the last rights were about to commence, is what hurt the sensitivities and sentiments of the Hindus. I wish to highlight the general feeling among the Hindus, that their sensitivities are not taken into account by the government and its officials. They ask: Will the police choose a Buddhist funeral to make an arrest?

Ignoring Hindu sensitivities began in 1958, with the burning of the Hindu priest of Panadura Pillayar Kovil. Since then, several temples have been destroyed, priests arrested and detained, their holy thread (Poo Nool) pulled out and thrown away, some were forced to commit the sacrilege of eating meat,  Hindu women were ordered to remove their thai during searches, and several such indignities are being committed.

As Jehan Perera correctly pointed out, in an article, the support for the LTTE is a state of mind. Ignoring religious sensitivity is one of the factors- a serious factor- that created that state of mind. In Tamil Nadu, which go to polls on May 13, the fact that the Tamils are ignored by Delhi, in its foreign policy considerations, is getting ingrained in the collective mind of the Tamil people. Film director Seeman gave vent to that feeling in his recent speeches, and has been arrested for speaking against the unity of India.

Tamil people are also voicing the opinion that Sonia Gandhi is seeking to take revenge against Prabhakaran for murdering her husband Rajiv. Kollatur Mani gave vent to that sentiment by justifying the murder of Rajiv Gandhi. He too has been arrested. Arrests never erase sentiments like the ones Seeman and Mani expressed. They may silence the others, but create fertile ground for their growth and spread.