Basil Fernando
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Wattala Pedige Joseph Basil Fernando (or Basil Fernando) was born on 14 October 1944 in Sri Lanka. He has been active in human rights and social action issues continuously from his youth years. He graduated from the Faculty of Law of the University of Ceylon, Colombo, Sri Lanka in 1972 and then taught English to second language students at the University of Sri Jayawardanapura, Sri Lanka, for eight years. He practiced law from 1980 to 1989 at the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka with an emphasis in Criminal Law, Employment Law and Human Rights Law.
He was an Appeals Counsel for Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong, for a project sponsored by the United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) from 1989 to 1992. From 1992 to 1993, he was a Senior United Nations Human Rights Officer-In Charge of the Investigation Unit in Cambodia under the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC). He was the Officer In Charge and the Chief of the Legal Assistance at the Cambodia Office of United Nations Center for Human Rights from 1993 to 1994. He has been the Executive Director of the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) and the Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) from 1994 up to the present. He is the author of several books on human rights related issues and legal reform issues.
Some of the books are:
- Modernization vs. Militarization: Ethnic Conflict and Labour in Sri Lanka (1991)
- Asian Refugees: A search for Solutions (1991)
- Inability to Prosecute: Courts and Human Rights in Cambodia and Sri Lanka (1993)
- Power vs. Conscience (1997)
- Problems Facing Cambodian Legal System (1998)
- Demoralization and Hope - A comparative study of the ideas of N.F.S. Grungtvig of Denmark and B.R. Ambedkarof India (2000)
- Crime and Justice (2003)
- Right to Speak Loudly (2004)
- An X-Ray of the Sri Lankan Policing System and Torture of the Poor (2005)
- In 2001, he published Kalyana Mittata: Beautiful Friendship, which is the largest number of English language poetry compilation by a Sri Lakan.
He has contributed many articles in academic journals and hundreds of articles popular magazines and newspapers. He has written and presented a large number of papers on human rights and rule of law, He is the chief editor Human Rights SOLIDARITY, a monthly magazine. And editor of article 2 (Referring to Article 2 of ICCPR) a Bi-monthly magazine.]. He initiated programme for creating a popular culture of human rights though monuments and creative works in Sri Lanka. A biographical account of Basil Fernanso was published by Le Roy Robinson in 1994 entitled, The Village at the Mouth of the River.
Mr. Fernando has conducted nearly 100 workshops and consultations on Reconciliation issues as well as on diverse aspects of Human Rights and Legal Reform in various parts of . He initiated the Judicial Assistance programme for Cambodia and the Religion and Human Rights Programme of the Asian Human Rights Commission. Mr. Fernando is also the author of several books of poems and short stories, which focus on general human rights issues. He was awarded the Kwangju ([Korea]) Human Rights prize for 2001.
