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Bureau of Rehabilitation: Not new, just part of a continuum

07 Oct 2022

By Ambika Satkunanathan  The Bureau of Rehabilitation Bill has caused concern and outrage, particularly in southern Sri Lanka, with several petitions filed in the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of the Bill. Yet, this attempt to deprive persons of liberty in the guise of rehabilitation is not new. It is a part of a continuum. And it has been used against different social groups for more than a decade. First the Tamils: Turning civilians into combatants  In 2009, at the end of the armed conflict in Sri Lanka, the Government separated those it suspected of being members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), and sent them to rehabilitation centres run by the military, at which many human rights violations are alleged to have taken place. Eligibility for rehabilitation was not determined using objective criteria, and even those who were forcibly recruited and were in the LTTE for only a few days or hours, or those who worked in a civilian capacity in LTTE institutions and did not take direct part in hostilities, were sent to rehabilitation, in contravention of international humanitarian law.  Decision-making regarding who was sent to rehabilitation rested entirely with the then-Secretary to the Ministry of Defence Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and was done without judicial oversight, nor was it monitored by an independent entity. Persons detained in this manner were denied access to legal representation and the right to challenge their detention. The detention of more than 12,000 persons in this manner was done via regulations which were issued under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). These regulations also enabled the Government to keep people in indefinite administrative detention, i.e. detention that is not overseen by a judge, by transferring them between rehabilitation centres and detention centres. To date, these regulations remain. Although the Government repeatedly stated it provided vocational training to those undergoing rehabilitation, most persons, particularly during the first couple of years after the war, did not receive any vocational training. Further, the available training was sex-stereotyped, and not responsive to market demands.  Following release, most persons were subject to regular surveillance, interrogation, and harassment by the military and intelligence services for years, which hampered their social reintegration, as the community viewed them with suspicion, and feared they acted as informants for the military. Further, the socioeconomic needs of those released from rehabilitation centres were unmet, with State initiatives falling short of addressing them in an effective way.  Then persons with drug dependency  In 2013, the Government converted the Kandakadu and Senapura centres, which were  used by the military to “rehabilitate” alleged ex-combatants, into centres for compulsory drug treatment. Although the two centres are legally within the purview of the State Ministry of Prison Reform and Prisoners Rehabilitation, they are operated by the military, which has no legal authority, mandate, nor expertise to be involved in drug rehabilitation.  The Drug Dependent Persons (Treatment and Rehabilitation) Act (No. 54 of 2007) governs the legal framework for drug rehabilitation in Sri Lanka. Section 10 of the Act empowers police officers to send any person suspected of consuming drugs for a medical assessment, and thereafter, produce the person before a Magistrate. Section 10 (4) allows a Magistrate to send the person for compulsory drug rehabilitation, either on the basis of the medical assessment conducted by a medical officer who assesses the person to be “drug-dependent”, or as a punishment for an offence under the Poisons, Opium and Dangerous Drugs Ordinance. It is pertinent to note that there is no medical test that can determine a person has a drug dependency. Therefore, if the person does not acknowledge they have a dependency, the medical assessment would be subjective, arbitrary, and unscientific. Section 10 hence allows the police to arrest a person without evidence and arbitrarily detain them, ultimately leading to the person being sentenced to compulsory drug rehabilitation. Any person could be arrested in this manner, which creates room for the provision to be abused. For example, there are instances of police threatening to use this provision against people to “teach them a lesson” or to extort money, as well as persons using it against their family members in property and marital disputes. All rehabilitation programmes at the centres are abstinence-based and no harm reduction services are provided. The UN Special Rapporteur for Torture has highlighted that denying persons access to substitution therapies constitutes subjecting “a large group of people to severe physical pain, suffering and humiliation, effectively punishing them for using drugs, and trying to coerce them into abstinence”. The compulsory drug rehabilitation centres, particularly the army-run centres, are places of violence and abuse, according to persons who were sent there for treatment. Violence was normalised at the centres to the extent that persons said they often did not know the reason they were beaten. The use of collective punishment was also common.  Evidence demonstrates that compulsory rehabilitation is counter-productive, and leads to quicker relapse. This is exacerbated by the lack of adequate post-release support or after-care to enable their effective social reintegration. Persons  who have been sent to rehabilitation more than once due to repeated relapse, report facing harassment by the police and stigma after release, which hinders their social reintegration and livelihood opportunities.  Later, the Muslims  In 2021, the Government issued the Deradicalisation from Holding Violent Extremist Religious Ideology regulations under the PTA, which appeared to target and racially profile the Muslim community. These regulations created a new predictive style of offence based on a broad legal definition that enables arrest and detention contrary to the procedure set out by Sri Lankan law and international human rights standards.  The regulations allow investigations to commence after an arrest – and hence deprive persons of knowledge of the reason for their arrest. The subjective determination of what is considered an offence risks the decision being influenced by personal prejudice and unconscious bias. The regulations also violate the right to a fair trial because they allow a person to be deemed guilty and sent to rehabilitation for up to two years without trial, solely on the recommendation of the Attorney General. There is no mention of the criteria by which the decision to send a person to rehabilitation is made, nor is there information on the contents of the rehabilitation programme. The regulations were challenged in the Supreme Court, which granted a stay-order prohibiting the Government from undertaking any activities related to rehabilitation. Despite the order the Government has tabled the Bureau of Rehabilitation Bill.  Now the ‘aragalaya’ activists The move by the Government to bring the different forms of rehabilitation under one roof via the Bureau of Rehabilitation Bill, is unsurprising given it has long equated the “war against terrorism” with the “war against drugs”. Former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, former Army Commander Gen. Shavendra Silva, and the Secretary to the Ministry of Defence have consistently equated the “fight against drugs” with the “fight against terrorism”.  Winning the war against terror, which the Government has used as a badge of honour to deflect any criticism of its actions, has been replaced by the war against drugs, and later the war against violent extremism. Likewise, the treatment of persons with drug dependence is equated with the rehabilitation of former LTTE combatants. By creating the impression of an existential threat to society via drug use, violent extremism, and terrorism, which only the armed forces are capable of combatting, the activities and functions of the armed forces in spheres outside their mandate are legitimised. The common threads running through the different types of rehabilitation are the involvement of the military, the use of executive powers to arbitrarily detain people without judicial oversight, and the dismissal of international human rights standards and evidence that demonstrate that the strategies used by the Government will only further discriminate and marginalise people, and create new grounds for potential future conflict and violence. We know compulsory drug rehabilitation drives people to relapse and does not work. History has shown that imprisoning young persons for what the Government thinks they might do or for their identity and/or perceived ideologies is likely to drive them to take to violence to avenge the wrongs committed by the State.  But why does the Government persist in implementing these strategies even though they have been proven not to work and are likely to exacerbate existing social problems? Because the Government’s intention does not appear to be to prevent violence or increase security for the people, but to consolidate power by targeting specific social groups through militarisation.  Through this, it is seeking to legalise and normalise state violence as part of its broader aim of entrenching authoritarianism and impunity.    (The author is a human rights lawyer and human rights activist. She is also the former Commissioner of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka) ………………………………………….. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication.


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