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Article II of the Constitution states, “No person shall be subjected
to torture or cruel inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
In the circumstances there is a duty cast on those who seek to
vaccinate persons to obtain the consent of the person or in the case of
a minor of the parent or guardian, whilst informing them of the possible
side effects or reactions thereof.
To a person who does not wish to get vaccinated it would amount to
cruel or inhuman treatment as one could get disabled, maimed, or even
die as a result of a forced injection of foreign bodies into one’s
system.
Furthermore according to the Ayurvedic system, which was in force in
the country for over two thousand years; when people of immense strength
walked this land and built great monuments and fought many a great
battle, these natural diseases like measles, chicken pox, mumps etc,
which purged the body of excess heat and consequently balanced the
elements which compose the human body were not vaccinated as a
precautionary measure.
Thus the State should take steps to give the parents in the case of
children the option to decide whether they should be vaccinated or not
as the human body has an immune system capable of combating ailments
such as these.
J. C. Boange Attorney-at-Law Rajagiriya
This is just an appeal to Montessori and kindergarten teachers who
request their students to bring empty cigarette packets to use along
with their creative activities. I noticed that this is being practised
at many schools.
Involving children with even empty packets of this deadly and useless
product is not advisable and it may only inculcate some positive image
about this lethal product in these tender hearts of children.
I kindly call the attention of the authorities in the education
sector to encourage and let them use some empty soap packets instead in
their creative activities.
Manjari Peiris Maharagama
We have heard of an attempt to relieve the congestion of city traffic
by providing free parking at a point along Galle Road at Ratmalana or
somewhere so that a commuter could park his car and take a luxury A/C
coach to Colombo with the coach leaving we hear every 15 minutes or so
during office hours.
Since no publicity and not even a telephone number has been given for
the public to get to know what this service is, we come to our own
conclusions expressed as follows: On the face of it, it looks as if no
feasibility study has been done on this.
If it is as good as it was expected to be, by this time news of the
success of this would have spread far and wide along the Southern coast.
Since nothing has been heard about it, it means that this project has
been a non-starter from the beginning.
The proposed luxury coach to Colombo which is the brainchild of the
most knowledgeable planners in the country who have no contact with
reality because they live in a different world gives me the opportunity
to bring to the attention of the Government, two injustices that have
been perpetrated against the people of this country for a very long
time.
One is the blocking of the centre aisle in all so-called A/C buses
with extra seats which will trap passengers in an emergency and also the
absence of an emergency exit door on one side of all buses which will
also trap the passengers, if the bus overturns blocking the usual
entrance and exit.
These are violations of the right of every citizen to his safety
which the planners of ‘Park and Coach’ are not aware of probably because
they would never block the aisle themselves and wrongly assume that
others also would not do so.
The other is the total inadequate provision for bus travellers to
cross over between Galle Road and Havelock Road.
The planners of bus routes who probably are the same as the Park and
Coach people will say that provision has been made with bus numbers 181
and 112 but they have never wanted to know how they operate and take
remedial action. That is a yardstick of their competency to solve any
problem.
L. Jayasooriya Colombo
I am overjoyed to read the news report that Kennel experts will soon
arrive in Sri Lanka to train local Kennel officers. Many months ago I
sent a letter to your paper which I believe you published about the
importance of bomb sniffing dogs. It is never too late, though if there
were couple of bomb sniffing dogs at the recent suicide bombing in the
South, the dogs would have certainly spotted the LTTE terrorist and
prevented the horrible incident.
Again I would recommend to have bomb sniffing dogs at all public
events and also at all major bus and railway stations. Just the sight of
a big German Sheperd along with a Kennel officer would be plenty
deterrent to any potential suicide bomber. We have bomb sniffing dogs in
the USA in all the major airports.
Evan Balasuriya
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