President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has been put under pressure to shut down the country to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
Leading Buddhist monks and some political parties affiliated with the Government have demanded a lockdown.
Chief Prelates of the Malwathu and Asgiri Chapters have urged the President to enforce one-week lockdown.
The Chief Prelate of the Malwathu Chapter, the Venerable Thibbatuwawe Sri Siddhartha Sumangalabhidhana Thero and the Chief Prelate of the Asgiriya Chapter, the Venerable Warakagoda Dhammasiddhi Sri Pagnananda Thero have raised concerns over the situation in the country.
They have urged the President to follow the advise of health experts and impose a lockdown.
Meanwhile, 10 political parties affiliated with the Government have also urged the President to enforce a lockdown.
Government Ministers and members Wimal Weerawansa, Udaya Gammanpila, Vasudeva Nanayakkara and A. L. M. Athaullah are among those who have called for a lockdown.
Courtesy: Colombo Gazette
National Peace Council expresses concerns over drafting of new NGO legislation
The National Peace Council (NPC), an independent and impartial national non-government organization, says the sudden decision to draft new legislation to replace the existing legislation covering the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Sri Lanka is concerning and ill-timed.
The Cabinet of Ministers has directed the Legal Draftsman to draft legislation that would replace the existing legislation that covers NGOs.
Issuing a statement, the NPC said the cabinet note on this issue points to the different laws that civil society organizations may register under and seeks to bring them all under a unified system of oversight. It also gives the background of the Easter terror attack as requiring the new legislation which would ensure financial transparency and accountability.
“The National Peace Council finds it very concerning as the government has so far had no discussion with NGOs such as ours on these matters, or shared or made public the draft legislation that the Legal Draftsman will work on. The draft legislation has the potential to impact upon civil society independence and role as part of the system of democracy,” the organization said.
Sri Lanka has general laws covering terrorist financing, money laundering and transparency. Special legislation to cover NGOs as a special category is liable to impact negatively on the independence of civil society from state regulators, NPC points out.
“We believe that it was not the lack of NGO regulation that permitted the heinous act of terror of the Easter bombings but the failure to monitor financial transactions within the available laws and regulations and also failure to follow on the intelligence information given to the state in this regard. Any regulation of NGOs should be compatible with the regulations of other non-state entities such as private companies and political parties. There is no justification to make scapegoats of NGOs when the inquiries on the Easter bombings continue to be contested in relation to the findings.”
Ironically this call for draft legislation comes at a time when the government has been actively engaging with peacebuilding NGOs in discussions on the reconciliation process. The proposal for new legislation that could restrict the space for civil society undermines the credibility of this important initiative, the NPC further said.
The NPC explained that Sri Lanka contains a diverse range of NGOs engaged in a diverse range of activities and any attempt to impose a uniform regime of NGOs would be impractical and inappropriate.
“For instance, state regulation would strike at the very core of those civic organizations that monitor the state’s human rights record or groups that monitor corruption in governance. The concept of the independent existence of NGOs as voluntary organizations at the community level, such as temple societies and small village organizations which is part of our culture, may be lost in the process of unification. It is therefore necessary to ensure that the legislation regarding the NGO sector will not be formulated without the wider participation of the NGO sector as a whole and not only with government-friendly ones,” the NPC said.
Courtesy: Colombo Page
