Basil Fernando
Encyclopedia
W.J. Basil Fernando is a Sri Lanka
n born jurist, author, poet, human rights activist, editor of Article 2 and Ethics in Action, and a prolific writer. He was educated at St. Anthony’s College, Wattala and St. Benedict’s College, Kotahena. He earned a LLB from the University of Ceylon
in 1972 and registered as an as an Attorney-At-Law of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka
in 1980 and practiced law in Sri Lanka up to the end of 1989. He became a legal adviser to Vietnam
ese refugees in a UNHCR-sponsored project in Hong Kong
. He joined the United Nations Transitional Authority (UNTAC) in 1992 as a senior human rights officer and later also served as the Chief of Legal Assistance to Cambodia
of the UN Centre of Human Rights ( now the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights office). He is associated with Asian Human Rights Commission
and Asian Legal Resource centre, based in Hong Kong since 1994.
, he began to write on problems of rule law in post-communist societies, which he later continued to develop into problems of justice in Asian societies. He has written extensively on this theme, basing his work on studies on Sri Lanka, Cambodia
and several other Asian countries.In three interconnected publications, The phantom limb: Failing judicial systems, torture
and human rights work in Sri Lanka; Recovering the authority of public institutions: A resource book on human rights in Sri Lanka; Sri Lanka: Impunity
, criminal justice and human rights , he analyzed to collapse of rule of law institutions in Sri Lanka
. This study has provided a model for such studies elsewhere.
and B.R. Ambedkar
of India
, he contributed to the development of civil society theory. This led to the introduction of the folk school concept into human rights work in several Asia
n projects. This includes the Human Rights
Correspondence School.
he first published his poems in English
in 1972 in collection entitled A New Era to Emerge. M.I. Kuruwilla, a prominent literary critic at the time reviewing this collection write to Navasilu 1976, “ I feel that among those writing English poetry in Sri Lanka Basil Fernando is unique in many respects. In fact, although his output may be small, in range and depth he could stand his own ground when compared with poets writing in a more vital tradition that ours, for example the African poets.“ Later Basil wrote several collections in English as well as Sinhala. His most recent collections are, The Sea Was Calm behind your house (2009) and Cheena Gedera Kirillege Geethaya (2009) , a Sinhala collection His poems has been included Several Anthologies published in Sri Lanka and other countries. His poems were reviewed by Anders Sjobohm in World
Literature Today . Professor K.G. Sankara Pillai, a well known Indian poet sums up the spirit of Basil Fernando’s poems thus; “Basil Fernando belongs to another breed of poets. Basil is delighted to tell stories. Through those stories he releases the dilemmas of our dreadful time and reveals his priorities in a creative career. Basil believes that the mission of poetry is narrating the nation; narrating the reality; the nation of the poorest majority of the people. His faith is in the ethics of imagination. The idyllic landscape, the nuanced narrative, the resonant image is absent in Basil’s poetry. Using straight and steady masculine linguistic structure in his poems, Basil opts to be a confident narrator of the times he witnesses, and a credible reporter of the cultural roots-spread beneath human relations we are tactfully farming. Basil believes that knowing the hard realities would alarm people. He dislikes allowing sleeping or dead words to ride on the horses of his poems. We see in Basil’s poems a narrator terribly worried over a madly chaotic world. His poems warn us against the speed with which our spiritual/social rivers are drying up. Our lives have become unbearably narrow. We are unaware of the crime we committed and the reason for our arrest. This is a frightening reoccurrence of a typical Kafkaesque situation. Basil’s poetry seeks with urgency the reasons for the unreasoned and rationale for the irrational. Fascism exhibits facts, but hides reality. Fascism announces might, but silences the cry. We can’t see which heavy weights are crushing us in the centre of the roads, in the abyss of time. We are not taught in schools or universities who are fabricating our lives as condemned cells. Basil has sought in his poems to convey the pain and ignorance prevailing in his land, in every land. He has written poems, as critiques of authoritarianism and orthodoxy fighting against the people, to maintain the power they celebrate now.” He has also published short stories. Several of his stories were published in Japan by Le Roy Robinson. Robinson also published a series interviews with Basil Fernando, which was later published under the title Village at the River Mouth by the English Writers Association. He is a member of the Sri Lanka English
Writers Association and a regular contributor to its publication Channels.
of two quarterly publications, Article 2 and Ethics in Action. He is a human rights activist and particularly engaged in the elimination of police torture in Sri Lanka and several countries in Asia.Two other major concerns were forced disappearances and casts discrimination. He is also writer of numerous articles and opinion columns. He has written weekly UPI column from 2007 to 2009 and writes regularly other publications such as the Sri Lanka Guardian.He was the Executive director of the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) and Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) from 1994 to July 2010 and now continues with the same organization as their Director for policy and programs. He deigned the redevelopment of the two organizations, with the perspective development of human rights to answer the need of countries in Asia and ‘Non-rule of law’ contexts. He worked for an Asian Human Rights Charter and an Asian Rule of Law
Charter. In his work he emphasized the need to develop ideas around article 2 of the International Covenant on Civil and political Rights (ICCPR). He was awarded Kwanju Human Rights Prize in 2000. He is also a Senior Asoska Fellow and a Sohmen Visitor at the Faculty of Law, of The University of Hong Kong.
In 2001, he won the Gwangju Prize for Human Rights
, which honors "individuals, groups or institutions in Korea and abroad that have contributed in promoting and advancing human rights, democracy and peace through their work."
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
n born jurist, author, poet, human rights activist, editor of Article 2 and Ethics in Action, and a prolific writer. He was educated at St. Anthony’s College, Wattala and St. Benedict’s College, Kotahena. He earned a LLB from the University of Ceylon
University of Ceylon
The University of Ceylon was the only university in Sri Lanka from 1942 until 1972. It had several constituent campuses at various locations around Sri Lanka. The University of Ceylon Act No. 1 of 1972, replaced it with the University of Sri Lanka which existed from 1973 to 1978. In 1978 it was...
in 1972 and registered as an as an Attorney-At-Law of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka
Supreme Court of Sri Lanka
The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka is the highest court of the nation of Sri Lanka. The Supreme Court is the highest and final judicial instance of record and is empowered to exercise its powers, subject to the provisions of the Constitution. The Court has ultimate appellate jurisdiction in...
in 1980 and practiced law in Sri Lanka up to the end of 1989. He became a legal adviser to Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
ese refugees in a UNHCR-sponsored project in Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
. He joined the United Nations Transitional Authority (UNTAC) in 1992 as a senior human rights officer and later also served as the Chief of Legal Assistance to Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
of the UN Centre of Human Rights ( now the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights office). He is associated with Asian Human Rights Commission
Asian Human Rights Commission
The Asian Human Rights Commission is an independent, non-governmental body, which seeks to promote greater awareness and realisation of human rights in the Asian region, and to mobilise Asian and international public opinion to obtain relief and redress for the victims of human rights violations...
and Asian Legal Resource centre, based in Hong Kong since 1994.
Jurisprudence
In CambodiaCambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
, he began to write on problems of rule law in post-communist societies, which he later continued to develop into problems of justice in Asian societies. He has written extensively on this theme, basing his work on studies on Sri Lanka, Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
and several other Asian countries.In three interconnected publications, The phantom limb: Failing judicial systems, torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
and human rights work in Sri Lanka; Recovering the authority of public institutions: A resource book on human rights in Sri Lanka; Sri Lanka: Impunity
Impunity
Impunity means "exemption from punishment or loss or escape from fines". In the international law of human rights, it refers to the failure to bring perpetrators of human rights violations to justice and, as such, itself constitutes a denial of the victims' right to justice and redress...
, criminal justice and human rights , he analyzed to collapse of rule of law institutions in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
. This study has provided a model for such studies elsewhere.
Civil Society
Through a study entitled Demoralization and Hope - creating the social foundations for sustaining democracy, a comparative study of ideas of N.F.S. Grungtvig of DenmarkDenmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
and B.R. Ambedkar
Ambedkar
- People :* Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar ,Indian jurist, political leader, Buddhist activist, philosopher, thinker, anthropologist, historian, orator, prolific writer, economist, scholar, editor, revolutionary and a revivalist for Buddhism in India....
of India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, he contributed to the development of civil society theory. This led to the introduction of the folk school concept into human rights work in several Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
n projects. This includes the Human Rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
Correspondence School.
Poetry and Other Creative Writings
As a poetPoet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
he first published his poems in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
in 1972 in collection entitled A New Era to Emerge. M.I. Kuruwilla, a prominent literary critic at the time reviewing this collection write to Navasilu 1976, “ I feel that among those writing English poetry in Sri Lanka Basil Fernando is unique in many respects. In fact, although his output may be small, in range and depth he could stand his own ground when compared with poets writing in a more vital tradition that ours, for example the African poets.“ Later Basil wrote several collections in English as well as Sinhala. His most recent collections are, The Sea Was Calm behind your house (2009) and Cheena Gedera Kirillege Geethaya (2009) , a Sinhala collection His poems has been included Several Anthologies published in Sri Lanka and other countries. His poems were reviewed by Anders Sjobohm in World
World
World is a common name for the whole of human civilization, specifically human experience, history, or the human condition in general, worldwide, i.e. anywhere on Earth....
Literature Today . Professor K.G. Sankara Pillai, a well known Indian poet sums up the spirit of Basil Fernando’s poems thus; “Basil Fernando belongs to another breed of poets. Basil is delighted to tell stories. Through those stories he releases the dilemmas of our dreadful time and reveals his priorities in a creative career. Basil believes that the mission of poetry is narrating the nation; narrating the reality; the nation of the poorest majority of the people. His faith is in the ethics of imagination. The idyllic landscape, the nuanced narrative, the resonant image is absent in Basil’s poetry. Using straight and steady masculine linguistic structure in his poems, Basil opts to be a confident narrator of the times he witnesses, and a credible reporter of the cultural roots-spread beneath human relations we are tactfully farming. Basil believes that knowing the hard realities would alarm people. He dislikes allowing sleeping or dead words to ride on the horses of his poems. We see in Basil’s poems a narrator terribly worried over a madly chaotic world. His poems warn us against the speed with which our spiritual/social rivers are drying up. Our lives have become unbearably narrow. We are unaware of the crime we committed and the reason for our arrest. This is a frightening reoccurrence of a typical Kafkaesque situation. Basil’s poetry seeks with urgency the reasons for the unreasoned and rationale for the irrational. Fascism exhibits facts, but hides reality. Fascism announces might, but silences the cry. We can’t see which heavy weights are crushing us in the centre of the roads, in the abyss of time. We are not taught in schools or universities who are fabricating our lives as condemned cells. Basil has sought in his poems to convey the pain and ignorance prevailing in his land, in every land. He has written poems, as critiques of authoritarianism and orthodoxy fighting against the people, to maintain the power they celebrate now.” He has also published short stories. Several of his stories were published in Japan by Le Roy Robinson. Robinson also published a series interviews with Basil Fernando, which was later published under the title Village at the River Mouth by the English Writers Association. He is a member of the Sri Lanka English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
Writers Association and a regular contributor to its publication Channels.
Human Rights
He is an EditorEditor
The term editor may refer to:As a person who does editing:* Editor in chief, having final responsibility for a publication's operations and policies* Copy editing, making formatting changes and other improvements to text...
of two quarterly publications, Article 2 and Ethics in Action. He is a human rights activist and particularly engaged in the elimination of police torture in Sri Lanka and several countries in Asia.Two other major concerns were forced disappearances and casts discrimination. He is also writer of numerous articles and opinion columns. He has written weekly UPI column from 2007 to 2009 and writes regularly other publications such as the Sri Lanka Guardian.He was the Executive director of the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) and Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) from 1994 to July 2010 and now continues with the same organization as their Director for policy and programs. He deigned the redevelopment of the two organizations, with the perspective development of human rights to answer the need of countries in Asia and ‘Non-rule of law’ contexts. He worked for an Asian Human Rights Charter and an Asian Rule of Law
Rule of law
The rule of law, sometimes called supremacy of law, is a legal maxim that says that governmental decisions should be made by applying known principles or laws with minimal discretion in their application...
Charter. In his work he emphasized the need to develop ideas around article 2 of the International Covenant on Civil and political Rights (ICCPR). He was awarded Kwanju Human Rights Prize in 2000. He is also a Senior Asoska Fellow and a Sohmen Visitor at the Faculty of Law, of The University of Hong Kong.
In 2001, he won the Gwangju Prize for Human Rights
Gwangju Prize for Human Rights
The Gwangju Prize for Human Rights is an award given by the South Korean May 18 Memorial Foundation to recognize "individuals, groups or institutions in Korea and abroad that have contributed in promoting and advancing human rights, democracy and peace through their work." The award is intended to...
, which honors "individuals, groups or institutions in Korea and abroad that have contributed in promoting and advancing human rights, democracy and peace through their work."
Books – In English
- Modernization versus Militarization in Sri Lanka
- The problems facing the Cambodian legal system
- Demoralization and Hope
- The Right to Speak Loudly: Essays on Law and Human Rights
- An X-ray of the Sri Lankan Policing System & Torture of the Poor
- The Phantom limb—Failing Judicial Systems, Torture and Human Rights Work in Sri Lanka
- Recovering the authority of public institutions—a resource book on Human Rights in Sri Lanka.
- Sri Lanka Impunity, Criminal Justice & Human Rights
Books in Sinhala Language
- Manawa Himikam Pahana
- Karyakshamabawaya Pragnagocharabawaya Ha Sri Lankawe Neethi Kramaya
- Rate Neethiya Muhunadena Thathkaleena Abiyogaya
- Lalith Rajapakshage Wadahinsa Naduwa
- Neethiye Adipathyaya Ha Manawa Himikam
- Sanwadashilee Samajaya Ha Kula Kramaye Adeenawa
- Lankawe Manawa Himikam Gatalu Saha Awata Visadum
- Neethiya Vihiluwak Bawata Herennata Ida Hareema
- Diribindeema Ha Apekshawa
External links
- Personal web site of Basil Fernando
- Official web site of the Asian Human Rights Commission
- Articles written for the Sri Lanka Guardian by Basil Fernando
- Ethics in Action
- Article 2
- Rule Of Law Sri Lanka
- Articles written for the UPI Asia
- Sri Lanka Human Rights
- Cyberspace Graveyard for Disappeared Persons