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FOR PUBLICATION
AHRC-ART-013-2010
February 5, 2010
An Article Series on Human Rights and Culture by the Asian Human Rights Commission
HUMAN RIGHTS & CULTURE - Vol. 2, ISSUE NO. 36
Welcome to Vol. 2, Issue No. 36.
In this issue we are pleased to bring you two poems by our regular contributor, Airyn Lentija: When Two of Us Apart and When All that Matters is You and Me. Next we have the poem Human Rights by Shifa Tuagir. Finally we have the essay, A Gleam in his Father¡¯s eye, by Stewart Sloan.
Publications -- We are pleased to announce the release of the following publications, they are the book, The Phantom Limb: Failing judicial systems, torture and human rights work in Sri Lanka and the latest issue of Article 2. We are also announcing the publication of the forthcoming issue of Ethic in Action. Details of these publications may be found in the Publications section.
As always, the AHRC is grateful to all our contributors and we would like to remind our readers that your comments on this issue and contributions for future issues may be sent to ahrc@ahrc.asia.
You may view the previous issues at: http://hrculture.blog.humanrights.asia/.
******HUMAN RIGHTS & CULTURE******
Two poems by Airyn Lentija
When Two of Us Apart
 When winter came and
went¨Dand came
without you
each morn of mine
breaks with rain drops.
The burning sun
that used to shine
my summer's morn
will be hanging blind,
rayless, and the
lively earth
will lose its glow,
chilling on its axis.
What mine is but
a love so deep
cast from a sapphire sea
of precious pearls.
But dear, oh well
if you leave me here
pathless and crack under
the dull sky.
Expect my love
each morn of mine
will bath in rain drops
when winter came and
went¨Dand came
without you.
When All That Matters is You and Me
To love as deep
as a deeper shade
of dreamless nights
I wont.
For to love you dear
as free as air
to hold you tight
I will
under the brilliance
of the smilling sun.
To gaze fondly
on the days that passed
and our laughters
that filled its minutes.
Perfect moments
of you and me.
From out the waves
of hatred and pain
our love rises
in sparkling showers,
watering our hearts
to slip away
from whispering tongues
that push our love
to the deeper shade
of dreamless nights.
 Ms. Airyn Lentija works as a domestic helper in Hong Kong and her work exposes some of the frustrations and inequalities that she and her colleagues have to endure.
Further details of Airyn¡¯s work may be found at: http://poetsforhumanrights.ning.com/profile/airyn?xgs=1
******HUMAN RIGHTS & CULTURE******
Human Rights
Shifa Tauqir
My rights, yours rights, our rights
Human Rights
From a mechanic shop came a cry of a boy
What are my rights? Education or being a mechanic
My rights, your rights, our rights
Human Rights
From a house came a cry of a girl
What are my rights? Doing the household work like a slave or
education
My rights, your rights, our rights
Human Rights
From a house came a cry of a women
What are my rights? Being made a slave or a free citizen
My rights, your rights. our rights
Human Rights
Shifa Tauqir is a supporter of the Coalition against Trafficking in Women International, details of which may be found at: http://www.change.org/coalition_against_trafficking_in_women_international_catw More of Tauqir¡¯s work may be found at: http://www.poemhunter.com/
******HUMAN RIGHTS & CULTURE******
A Gleam in his Father¡¯s Eye
Stewart Sloan
Some people, especially ladies, can pinpoint the exact moment when a child is conceived. I can¡¯t go to that extreme but I can narrow down the month when 'Rina and I decided to try for a child. It was August, 1984 and nine months later James Charles John Sloan was delivered by cesarean section at the Canossa hospital in Hong Kong.
I suppose it is clich¨¦d to say that I will never forget the day. At the time I was working for a security company in Cheung Sha Wan. It was a Saturday morning and I was thinking about packing up to leave for the weekend. Then my wife called to say that something was happening. Her waters had broken. I called the doctor who told me to get her to the hospital. It was at that point in time that my brains turned to mush.
I bellowed for my secretary (I had a secretary in those days), to get me a taxi. This was not going to be an easy task. The rush hour was just starting and to make matters worse it was a race day. Miraculously she managed to commandeer one for me. I gave the driver my address and sat back to chew off my remaining fingernails.
Quite soon we were at the village of Tsok Pok Hang where we were renting a ground floor apartment. I motioned to the driver to wait as he didn¡¯t speak any English and my Cantonese wasn¡¯t good enough. I rushed to the front door, told 'Rina to ready, and then ran to my neighbour¡¯s house, where I am told, but don¡¯t recall, saying: ¡°My babies having a wife, please translate to the driver for me.¡± Whatever I said must have been convincing enough because the neighbour rushed out of her house, slamming the door behind her and locking herself out.
Meanwhile, 'Rina in the infuriating manner of women, set about making me a sandwich and glass of milk which she insisted on me eating before we left and which I managed to get down without pouring too much of it over me. I finally managed to get her to the taxi and to my intense relief we cut through the traffic, which should have been packed, and arrived at the Canossa hospital. By this time I was a blithering idiot and when asked for a cheque for the deposit had to write three before I got it right. 'Rina was taken into surgery and at 2pm, two hours after I ran out of my office in Cheung Sha Wan, James Charles John Sloan was born. He weighed eight pounds, one ounce and I breathed a sigh of relief for 'Rina that he had arrived by caesarian.
I stayed with 'Rina and James for the remainder of the day until the nurses told me to go home. I went to City One in Shatin to do some shopping. (In those days City One had the only supermarket in the district of Shatin). I recall buying a bottle of Dimples whiskey, a six pack of San Miguel, some cat food and for some strange reason sardines for me. I say strange because I¡¯ve always hated sardines. After a quick drink in a bar which is still there today although with a different name, I went home. Home to an empty house apart from the cat whose name I recall was Florence.
Contrary to expectations I did not dive into the bottle of Dimples but instead had a soothing beer before crashing gratefully into bed. Tomorrow, and the next few weeks were going to be busy.
Stewart Sloan is the author of three novels and a collection of anecdotes about the Royal Hong Kong Police Force, he has also written several articles on human rights abuses by the police in Sri Lanka. Further details of his work may be found at: http://sloanbooks.blogspot.com James, now 24, works as an English teacher and lives with his fianc¨¦ in Hong Kong.
******HUMAN RIGHTS & CULTURE******
Publications
 Last week we announced the impending publication of the December 2009 issue of Ethics in Action. We are pleased to inform you that this issue is now available.
This issue presents the report on the Prevention of Police Torture in Sri Lanka project which was prepared and written by a group of evaluators from the Rehabilitation and Research Centre for Torture Victims (RCT) Denmark.
The Phantom Limb: Failing judicial systems, torture and human rights work in Sri Lanka
A Study of Police Torture in Sri Lanka by Morten Koch Andersen and Basil Fernando
 The Asian Human Rights Commission wishes to inform you about the publication of a new book on the failing judicial systems and the issue of the endemic torture practiced at police stations in Sri Lanka.
This study is a result of the cooperation between the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) and the Rehabilitation and Research Centre for Torture Victims (RCT).
The study was done in January 2008 and the data was processed during April and May 2008 at the AHRC office in Hong Kong. The idea and outline of the study was developed by Basil Fernando of the Asian Human Rights Commission and the processing and analysis of the data and the writing of the report was completed by Morten Koch Andersen of RCT.
The study seeks to explore the routine use of torture by the police and illuminate the widespread violence and human rights violations that are part of everyday life in Sri Lanka. It seeks to show the apparent neglect of the Sri Lankan state to stop these atrocities and provide adequate protection and remedies for the victims by ignoring publicly available information provided by state commissioned investigations and reports on the continuously declining state of affairs in the police force and the general deteriorating of human rights in the country.
Much human rights reporting that focus on crisis and immediate risks, dangers and sufferings tend to overlook historic processes and social ordering systems -- such as caste -- in their (often case based) illustrative descriptions of repressive practices, misuse and mismanagement of authority and the inadequacy of the justice system to protect the citizens. However, it is the proposition of the study that to investigate torture practices and the apparent inability to change the current state of affairs one has to explore the logics based in deep rooted social systems and attitudes. This insight offers an explanation for the socioeconomic bias in the enactment of torture and the reluctance and resistance to change in the criminal justice and political system. In this regard, caste as an ever present social ordering system in South Asia and Sri Lanka appears to be a viable and fundamental issue to include in the analysis to understand current human rights abuses.
The argument is that a 'debris' of the caste system somehow orders social perceptions, relations and actions in the unfolding of the criminal justice system, especially in the images of the mariginalized laboring poor. To do this, we will look into the interconnectedness of the early judicial system and administration and the caste system.
[Published in November 2009 jointly by the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), Hong Kong and the Rehabilitation and Research Centre for Torture Victims (RCT), Denmark. 80 pages, ISBN: 978-962-8314-47-8]
 Article 2, Vol.8. No.4 is now available.
Article 2 is a quarterly publication of the Asian Legal Resource Centre
This issue covers the following:
An essay on abysmal lawlessness & the zero status of Sri Lankans
By Basil Fernando, Director, Asian Human Rights Commission & Asian Legal Resource Centre, Hong Kong, with staff of the commission
The distinction between genuine and counterfeit actions for justice
The lost meaning of legality
The predominance of the security apparatus
The disappearance of truth through propaganda
The superman controller
Destroyed public institutions
The zero status of citizens
Further information on Article 2 may be found at: www.article2.org
******HUMAN RIGHTS & CULTURE******
The Asian Human Rights Commission is regularly issuing this article series on Human Rights and Culture in which various cultural expressions, poems, stories, pictures and other forms of cultural expression that are based on the theme of justice, will be published. A pivotal issue in modern literature is justice, particularly the enormous unleashing of injustice under fascist, communist and other authoritarian regime including those that pursue an unbridled market economy have generated responses from created writers. This search for justice is at the very essence of being human. Human beings are part of nature and part of each other. Perhaps the lines of John Donne are most relevant: ¡°... any man¡¯s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde;¡±
Contemporary mass culture promotes violence and destruction. There are those who are opposed to mass culture and want to reclaim the best traditions of human culture within which justice remains a core issue. This column will provide space for those who wish to share their creative initiatives.
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About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.
Posted on 2010-02-05
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