Article 13(5) of the Constitution recognises the fundamental right to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, unless the burden of proof is placed on the accused, as a part of the due process and the right to a fair trial.
Unfortunately, Dr. Shafi Shihabdeen was not afforded the presumption of guilt and he instead endured a trial by media and was convicted in the court of public opinion. This was when, whilst serving at the Kurunegala Teaching Hospital as a senior house officer, he was, without being named, came to be accused as the “Muslim doctor” who, as an obstetrician and gynecologist, had surreptitiously performed over 4,000 illegal sterilisation surgical tubal ligation operations on Sinhala Buddhist mothers in a front page lead story in May 2019 – hot on the heels of the Easter Sunday Islamist terror attacks of April 2019, whereafter anti-Muslim sentiments were at a fever pitch.
Thereafter came out many women who were understandably aggrieved at the plight of not being able to conceive a second time and feeling legitimately victimised, but absolutely ignorant of the complicated biological processes at play behind each unique conception, complaining that they had been sterilised by Dr. Shihabdeen. The story spread like an epidemic and wildfire, enveloping the society in mass hysteria, spurred on by the media. With Dr. Shihabdeen being identified by name shortly thereafter as having performed a procedure on hundreds of women seeking to be mothers for the second time, which rendered them sterile and thus unable to conceive a second time, a full-blown political and media circus went on overdrive, going gung ho, all guns blazing. The result was that he was arrested by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) thereafter on suspicion of unlawfully acquiring assets and wealth in excess of and disproportionate to his earnings and income. It seems that he cannot be both a doctor with a private practice and laboratory, and also a businessman who engages in the trade of vehicles and textiles and go into business with friends by purchasing property. There was the odd media report or two about a personal animus of a work colleague and subsequent judicial corruption in the form of a conflict of interest involving the latter also playing a role in the subsequent proceedings against him.
Indeed, the CID has since noted that there were irregularities in the process under which he was arrested. His troubles did not end there, as literally over 1,000 women complained against him, claiming that he had sterilised them in the context of Caesarean section procedures by allegedly forcibly blocking and/or damaging their fallopian tubes by way of clamping, and/or through the use of fingers, clamps, and forceps, thus rendering them barren; never mind the fact that visiting obstetricians and gynaecologists, medical practitioners, experts, and supervisors, assisting nurses, and others including technicians and minor staffers having noted that the allegations of conducting the same are fantastical and impossible, unscientific, and false. To add to this Kafkaesque nightmare, he was also accused of having terrorist ties, specifically maintaining links with a terrorist organisation involved in terrorist activity, namely the National Thowheeth Jama’ath organisation behind the Easter Sunday bombings, and detained under the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act.
Yet, despite an unusually exhaustive inquiry along all these red herrings including the recording of statements from over 500 persons, including the Deputy Inspector General of Police in charge of Kurunegala, who was the source of the original newspaper article but who, on questioning during the police investigation, had stated that he had only informed the journalist in question of the existence of a “rumour” regarding the same, the CID and intelligence agencies have drawn a complete blank in terms of finding even a fig leaf of evidence to support even a shred of suspicion. Yet, despite lacking any basis in fact and not being hitherto charged in a court of law, he is only out on bail.
This had, all along, appears to have simply been a case of Hitchcockian mistaken identity. But, was it?
It is since reported that the Health Ministry Secretary had ordered the continuation of Dr. Shihabdeen’s salary and the payment of salary arrears as per the Establishments Code’s procedure concerning officers sent on compulsory leave (which he claims was arbitrary, unlawful, sans just cause and legal authority), with the Kurunegala Teaching Hospital Director being ordered to explain as to why his salary had not been paid for the time duration. It seems however that this respite was short lived as his troubles did not end there. The Public Service Commission denied authorising the continuation of the salary and the payment of the back wages. He has since had to file a writ petition before the Court of Appeal, seeking an order directing the relevant authorities to pay his salary and back wages. Due process including fair trial-related rights, such as the complete intimation of the charge/s against him and the right to legal assistance (lawyer being given access), have in certain instances, been denied throughout this tribulation.
He is also, however, yet to be reinstated in his position at his workplace. It is too little solace, and much too late at that. The damage is done. Hate, malice, hostility, intimidation, racism, and the resultant mental trauma have become a daily routine and rigmarole not just for him but also his wife who was also a doctor attached to the same hospital (but since sought and received a transfer, and has also been on medical leave), and his children, who have had to, in the aftermath, involuntarily leave home and hearth, and relocate on multiple occasions, quit work and schooling, and survive on steadily dwindling income sources (accounts frozen) and the ready assurance of discrimination and ostracisation and unfair targeting. To describe this cause célèbre as an injustice does not begin to cover the gamut of suffering endured by him.
In her introduction to historian Francis Hill’s A Delusion of Satan: The Full Story of the Salem Witch Trials, author on comparative religion Karen Armstrong describes how those fleeing religious persecution in Europe to find a new and better world in America, also brought with them an inadequate conception of religion where instead of compassion as the primary religious virtue, the Puritans of New England, cultivated a harsh, unyielding righteousness that was quick to judge and condemn, one that also saw Satan as omnipresent. Armstrong also notes how individuals with mundane concerns and frustrations familiar to each one of us including boredom, envy, a sense of injustice, or of being marginalised (or what Hill compares to disinheritance in the form of the denial of just expectations) – trivial ills we have all experienced – and communities alienated from their roots, struggling for survival in uncharted realms, riddled with tension, jealousy, and resentment, fuelled in turn by rage, bitterness, and envy produced by deep losses on many levels, including the individual and familial as well as the social and national, can fester and attract hostility and explode into a destructive violence that assumes diabolic proportions. She concludes that we will continue to be plagued by primitive terrors that lie beyond the control of rationality and that no matter how modern and scientific our society becomes, we can still be haunted by inner demons, which we project outward onto others with abhorrent effect and that bad religion can be as destructive when like any other activity; it can be abused and made to exacerbate our frightened egoism instead of helping us to transcend it. The Salem witch hunts came to be replaced in the public imagination by the “Red Scare” of McCarthyism which led to the American State seeking out communists and communist sympathisers, mostly men and women living productive and respectable lives, and stripped them of their employment and in certain cases, imprisoning them. As Hill observes in the Preface to her book, a climate of intolerance, fed in equal measure by the religious right’s zeal and the left’s political correctness, nourishes the soil to sow the dragon’s teeth, in this case of abject belief and fear.
Sri Lanka too has had a storied history of witch hunts.
During the furore surrounding the fiasco that was the initial police investigation into the atrocity which was the September 2015 abduction, rape, grave sexual abuse, and strangulation murder of a four-year-old girl in Kotadeniyawa, the fact that the ultimate convict was a self-confessed stalker cum scopophiliac and underwear fetishist against whom multiple police jurisdictions had prior to the incident for which he was sentenced, received several complaints of sexual misdemeanors, which amounted to little in the way of subsequent action from a law enforcement standpoint, and the fact that the first judicial medical officer to arrive at the site of the body, by observing the crime scene including the violence of the injuries, inferred that the crime was a combination of pedophilia, sadism, and possibly necrophilia, whose escalation in criminal confidence and motive showed the perpetrator likely to be or become a serial offender, who in the best interests of all, was a predator to be captured before the next unsuspecting prey cum victim, slipped the mind of all. This was a crime to be solved fast and forgotten faster. Hence, the hasty and wrongful arrests of a teenager for the possession of pornography and the arrest of the eventual convict’s brother Dinesh Priyashantha known by the alias “Kondaya” who simply was in the wrong place, at the wrong time, had the wrong history (per the media, previous arrest for the alleged sexual abuse of a child and peculiar behaviour of voyeurism) and most importantly, looked the wrong way and did not look the right way – “not ordinary”.
The trial for the media in Dr. Shihabdeen’s case, even though criminal defamation is no longer in the book of statutes and only civil defamation with recourse in delict/tort being available, too will have its day in the court of public opinion (maybe, it already has); its outcome, a fait accompli.The tragedy of Dr. Shafi Shihabdeen
13 Feb 2022
The tragedy of Dr. Shafi Shihabdeen
13 Feb 2022
Article 13(5) of the Constitution recognises the fundamental right to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, unless the burden of proof is placed on the accused, as a part of the due process and the right to a fair trial.
Unfortunately, Dr. Shafi Shihabdeen was not afforded the presumption of guilt and he instead endured a trial by media and was convicted in the court of public opinion. This was when, whilst serving at the Kurunegala Teaching Hospital as a senior house officer, he was, without being named, came to be accused as the “Muslim doctor” who, as an obstetrician and gynecologist, had surreptitiously performed over 4,000 illegal sterilisation surgical tubal ligation operations on Sinhala Buddhist mothers in a front page lead story in May 2019 – hot on the heels of the Easter Sunday Islamist terror attacks of April 2019, whereafter anti-Muslim sentiments were at a fever pitch.
Thereafter came out many women who were understandably aggrieved at the plight of not being able to conceive a second time and feeling legitimately victimised, but absolutely ignorant of the complicated biological processes at play behind each unique conception, complaining that they had been sterilised by Dr. Shihabdeen. The story spread like an epidemic and wildfire, enveloping the society in mass hysteria, spurred on by the media. With Dr. Shihabdeen being identified by name shortly thereafter as having performed a procedure on hundreds of women seeking to be mothers for the second time, which rendered them sterile and thus unable to conceive a second time, a full-blown political and media circus went on overdrive, going gung ho, all guns blazing. The result was that he was arrested by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) thereafter on suspicion of unlawfully acquiring assets and wealth in excess of and disproportionate to his earnings and income. It seems that he cannot be both a doctor with a private practice and laboratory, and also a businessman who engages in the trade of vehicles and textiles and go into business with friends by purchasing property. There was the odd media report or two about a personal animus of a work colleague and subsequent judicial corruption in the form of a conflict of interest involving the latter also playing a role in the subsequent proceedings against him.
Indeed, the CID has since noted that there were irregularities in the process under which he was arrested. His troubles did not end there, as literally over 1,000 women complained against him, claiming that he had sterilised them in the context of Caesarean section procedures by allegedly forcibly blocking and/or damaging their fallopian tubes by way of clamping, and/or through the use of fingers, clamps, and forceps, thus rendering them barren; never mind the fact that visiting obstetricians and gynaecologists, medical practitioners, experts, and supervisors, assisting nurses, and others including technicians and minor staffers having noted that the allegations of conducting the same are fantastical and impossible, unscientific, and false. To add to this Kafkaesque nightmare, he was also accused of having terrorist ties, specifically maintaining links with a terrorist organisation involved in terrorist activity, namely the National Thowheeth Jama’ath organisation behind the Easter Sunday bombings, and detained under the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act.
Yet, despite an unusually exhaustive inquiry along all these red herrings including the recording of statements from over 500 persons, including the Deputy Inspector General of Police in charge of Kurunegala, who was the source of the original newspaper article but who, on questioning during the police investigation, had stated that he had only informed the journalist in question of the existence of a “rumour” regarding the same, the CID and intelligence agencies have drawn a complete blank in terms of finding even a fig leaf of evidence to support even a shred of suspicion. Yet, despite lacking any basis in fact and not being hitherto charged in a court of law, he is only out on bail.
This had, all along, appears to have simply been a case of Hitchcockian mistaken identity. But, was it?
It is since reported that the Health Ministry Secretary had ordered the continuation of Dr. Shihabdeen’s salary and the payment of salary arrears as per the Establishments Code’s procedure concerning officers sent on compulsory leave (which he claims was arbitrary, unlawful, sans just cause and legal authority), with the Kurunegala Teaching Hospital Director being ordered to explain as to why his salary had not been paid for the time duration. It seems however that this respite was short lived as his troubles did not end there. The Public Service Commission denied authorising the continuation of the salary and the payment of the back wages. He has since had to file a writ petition before the Court of Appeal, seeking an order directing the relevant authorities to pay his salary and back wages. Due process including fair trial-related rights, such as the complete intimation of the charge/s against him and the right to legal assistance (lawyer being given access), have in certain instances, been denied throughout this tribulation.
He is also, however, yet to be reinstated in his position at his workplace. It is too little solace, and much too late at that. The damage is done. Hate, malice, hostility, intimidation, racism, and the resultant mental trauma have become a daily routine and rigmarole not just for him but also his wife who was also a doctor attached to the same hospital (but since sought and received a transfer, and has also been on medical leave), and his children, who have had to, in the aftermath, involuntarily leave home and hearth, and relocate on multiple occasions, quit work and schooling, and survive on steadily dwindling income sources (accounts frozen) and the ready assurance of discrimination and ostracisation and unfair targeting. To describe this cause célèbre as an injustice does not begin to cover the gamut of suffering endured by him.
In her introduction to historian Francis Hill’s A Delusion of Satan: The Full Story of the Salem Witch Trials, author on comparative religion Karen Armstrong describes how those fleeing religious persecution in Europe to find a new and better world in America, also brought with them an inadequate conception of religion where instead of compassion as the primary religious virtue, the Puritans of New England, cultivated a harsh, unyielding righteousness that was quick to judge and condemn, one that also saw Satan as omnipresent. Armstrong also notes how individuals with mundane concerns and frustrations familiar to each one of us including boredom, envy, a sense of injustice, or of being marginalised (or what Hill compares to disinheritance in the form of the denial of just expectations) – trivial ills we have all experienced – and communities alienated from their roots, struggling for survival in uncharted realms, riddled with tension, jealousy, and resentment, fuelled in turn by rage, bitterness, and envy produced by deep losses on many levels, including the individual and familial as well as the social and national, can fester and attract hostility and explode into a destructive violence that assumes diabolic proportions. She concludes that we will continue to be plagued by primitive terrors that lie beyond the control of rationality and that no matter how modern and scientific our society becomes, we can still be haunted by inner demons, which we project outward onto others with abhorrent effect and that bad religion can be as destructive when like any other activity; it can be abused and made to exacerbate our frightened egoism instead of helping us to transcend it. The Salem witch hunts came to be replaced in the public imagination by the “Red Scare” of McCarthyism which led to the American State seeking out communists and communist sympathisers, mostly men and women living productive and respectable lives, and stripped them of their employment and in certain cases, imprisoning them. As Hill observes in the Preface to her book, a climate of intolerance, fed in equal measure by the religious right’s zeal and the left’s political correctness, nourishes the soil to sow the dragon’s teeth, in this case of abject belief and fear.
Sri Lanka too has had a storied history of witch hunts.
During the furore surrounding the fiasco that was the initial police investigation into the atrocity which was the September 2015 abduction, rape, grave sexual abuse, and strangulation murder of a four-year-old girl in Kotadeniyawa, the fact that the ultimate convict was a self-confessed stalker cum scopophiliac and underwear fetishist against whom multiple police jurisdictions had prior to the incident for which he was sentenced, received several complaints of sexual misdemeanors, which amounted to little in the way of subsequent action from a law enforcement standpoint, and the fact that the first judicial medical officer to arrive at the site of the body, by observing the crime scene including the violence of the injuries, inferred that the crime was a combination of pedophilia, sadism, and possibly necrophilia, whose escalation in criminal confidence and motive showed the perpetrator likely to be or become a serial offender, who in the best interests of all, was a predator to be captured before the next unsuspecting prey cum victim, slipped the mind of all. This was a crime to be solved fast and forgotten faster. Hence, the hasty and wrongful arrests of a teenager for the possession of pornography and the arrest of the eventual convict’s brother Dinesh Priyashantha known by the alias “Kondaya” who simply was in the wrong place, at the wrong time, had the wrong history (per the media, previous arrest for the alleged sexual abuse of a child and peculiar behaviour of voyeurism) and most importantly, looked the wrong way and did not look the right way – “not ordinary”.
The trial for the media in Dr. Shihabdeen’s case, even though criminal defamation is no longer in the book of statutes and only civil defamation with recourse in delict/tort being available, too will have its day in the court of public opinion (maybe, it already has); its outcome, a fait accompli.Kapruka
Discover Kapruka, the leading online shopping platform in Sri Lanka, where you can conveniently send Gifts and Flowers to your loved ones for any event. Explore a wide range of popular Shopping Categories on Kapruka, including Toys, Groceries, Electronics, Birthday Cakes, Fruits, Chocolates, Automobile, Mother and Baby Products, Clothing, and Fashion. Additionally, Kapruka offers unique online services like Money Remittance, Astrology, Medicine Delivery, and access to over 700 Top Brands. Also If you’re interested in selling with Kapruka, Partner Central by Kapruka is the best solution to start with. Moreover, through Kapruka Global Shop, you can also enjoy the convenience of purchasing products from renowned platforms like Amazon and eBay and have them delivered to Sri Lanka.Send love straight to their heart this Valentine's with our thoughtful gifts!
Discover Kapruka, the leading online shopping platform in Sri Lanka, where you can conveniently send Gifts and Flowers to your loved ones for any event. Explore a wide range of popular Shopping Categories on Kapruka, including Toys, Groceries, Electronics, Birthday Cakes, Fruits, Chocolates, Automobile, Mother and Baby Products, Clothing, and Fashion. Additionally, Kapruka offers unique online services like Money Remittance, Astrology, Medicine Delivery, and access to over 700 Top Brands. Also If you’re interested in selling with Kapruka, Partner Central by Kapruka is the best solution to start with. Moreover, through Kapruka Global Shop, you can also enjoy the convenience of purchasing products from renowned platforms like Amazon and eBay and have them delivered to Sri Lanka.Send love straight to their heart this Valentine's with our thoughtful gifts!