Posts Categorized: Human Rights

There are Constraints

Our immediate stress is on relief, renovation, and rehabilitation: Lt Gen Depinder Singh The overall commander of the IPKF in Sri Lanka is Lt-General Depinder Singh, 58, Masterminding Operation Pawan between Madras and Palaly, the General has so far avoided the press. by S.H. Venkatramani, India Today, November 15, 1987 UPDATED: December 13, 2013 16:29… Read more »

Sowing the Seeds of Conflict

Letter to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, February 18, 2021 Letter to HCHR Sowing-the-Seeds-of-Conflict Feb 18 2021 Signed by Chair of the ‘Elders’ Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland Juan Manuel Santos, the Nobel Peace Prize winning former president of Colombia All the former UN Human Rights High Commissioners since the Human… Read more »

Experts Dismayed by Regressive Steps

Call for renewed UN scrutiny and efforts to ensure accountability by Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Geneva, February 5, 2021 UN human rights experts have expressed their deep concern on 5 February 2021 about the reversal of important democratic gains achieved since 2015 and roll back on limited progress made on accountability,… Read more »

OHCHR: Sri Lanka on Alarming Path

Towards recurrence of grave human rights violations – UN report by UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Geneva, January 21, 2021 OHCHR Report on Sri Lanka 27 January 2021 GENEVA (27 January 2021) – A new UN report published on Wednesday warns that the failure of Sri Lanka to address past violations… Read more »

Sri Lanka: A Nation Disintegrates

by Steven R. Weisman, The New York Times, December 13, 1987 IN AN ISLAND in a pristine lake near Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, gunmen guard the sleek new Parliament building, which a terrorist bomb ripped through last August, wounding the Prime Minister and barely missing the President. Downtown, the scattered vacant lots and… Read more »

The Disappearance of ‘Father Basketball’ in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka

Jesuit Missionaries in Post-Colonial Conflict Zones by Bernardo E. Brown, Journal of South Asian Studies, November 15, 2015 Disappearance of ‘Father Basketball’ in Batticaloa 2015 Abstract In August 1990, Father Eugene John Hebert SJ disappeared while trying to reach his home in the Sri Lankan city of Batticaloa. Caught in the midst of the turmoil… Read more »

Rajapaksas Seek Sinhalese Supremacy in Sri Lanka

by Salman Rafi Sheikh, Asia Times, Hong Kong, December 3, 2020 Ruling clan is pushing new form of ethnic majoritarianism to marginalize and dominate historically restive Tamil minority With Sri Lanka’s Rajapaksa clan back in power, the island nation is by any measure firmly back on a path to elected authoritarianism. But the Rajapaksas aspire… Read more »

ITJP & JDS: Dossier on Rear Admiral (Rtd.) Sarath Weerasekara

by Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka & International Truth & Justice Project, Europe & South Africa, November 2020 rear-admiral-sarath-weerasekera August 2020: State Minister of Provincial Councils and Local Government Affairs November 2020: Appointed as Minister of Public Security1 (with control over the Police department, Civil Security department, Police Training College and the Multi-Purpose Development… Read more »

Amnesty: Deliver Justice, Truth and Reparation to Families of the Disappeared

by Amnesty International, London, November 27, 2020 Following the announcement of the release of a list of complaints and information received by the Office on Missing Persons regarding people who were disappeared during Sri Lanka’s internal conflicts, the country’s authorities must now deliver justice, truth and reparation to the families, Amnesty International said today. On 26 November… Read more »

Rajapaksa Lied to ‘Powerful Ambassador’

Over evacuation of Tamils in 2009 – Sri Lankan MP by Tamil Guardian, London, November 24, 2020 File photograph: Mahinda Rajapaksa meets with former US Ambassador Robert O’Blake A Sri Lankan parliamentarian revealed how Mahinda Rajapaksa lied to “an ambassador of the most powerful country” about the evacuation of trapped Tamil civilians in 2009, in… Read more »

PTA: Terrorising Sri Lanka for 42 Years

Socio-economic and psychological impact on families of PTA detainees following the Easter Sunday Attacks by Marisa de Silva, Law & Society Trust, Colombo, November 2020 PTA_Terrorising-Sri-Lanka-for-42-years-English “When I was in prison, I met and spoke with other Tamil PTA prisoners, some who had been there for 10 years, with their files not even taken up… Read more »

Sinhalization of the North-East: Kankesanthurai (KKS)

by People for Equality & Relief in Lanka (PEARL), October 26, 2020 Sinhalization of the North-East: Kankesanthurai – People for Equality and Relief in Lanka (pearlaction.org) Kankesanthurai (KKS) is a historic port suburb located in the Northern Province of the island of Sri Lanka. Formerly known as Gayathurai, the region is encompassed by a natural… Read more »

Sri Lanka’s Militarised Coronavirus Containment has Grave Consequences

by Thusiyan Nandakumar | MedAct, October 16, 2020 | As states around the world continue to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic, fears are mounting in many places for already disenfranchised and vulnerable communities. In Sri Lanka, a region that has been torn by decades of ethnic conflict and suffers from continued reports of human rights abuses, those… Read more »

Assessment of FaceBook’s HR Impact in Sri Lanka

by Chloe Poynton, Article One, San Francisco, May 12, 2020 In 2018, Article One partnered with Facebook to conduct two country-level human rights impact assessments (HRIAs) in Sri Lanka and Indonesia. Today, Facebook published the executive summaries of both reports, a step we applaud and hope to see more of. Understanding how online engagements can… Read more »

When Will the EU, US, UK & UNHRC Take Action

To find the missing? By; Kumarathasan Rasingam, October 12, 2020 The mothers, fathers, relatives of the missing are on the streets for more than 1340 days on sit-in protest demanding to know the whereabouts of their loved ones. They are holding EU, US & UN Flags and the pictures of their loved ones who are… Read more »

Review: ‘Keenie Meenie: Britain’s Private Army’

by Tamil Guardian, London, October 7, 2020 Streaming on YouTube, October 8, 2020 at 2pm EST at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZokBJZyVqk Phil Miler’s explosive new documentary, “Keenie Meenie: Britain’s Private Army”, provides detailed insight into how a private British company went on to effectively set up one of Sri Lanka’s most notorious military units and sheds light on the United… Read more »

Human Rights Half Measures: Avoiding Accountability in Postwar Sri Lanka

by Kate Cronin-Furman, Cambridge University Press’ World Politics journal, Vol. 72, Issue 1, November 11, 2019 Abstract Why do repressive states create human rights institutions that cost them money and political capital but fail to silence international criticism? The academic literature assumes that states engaging in disingenuous human rights behavior are hoping to persuade (or… Read more »

Universal Declaration of Human Rights & Sri Lanka

by Kumarathasan Rasingam, October 3, 2020 The Universal Declaration for Human Rights  [UDHR] was adopted on 10th December 1948 by the United Nations at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris.  The UDHR contains thirty Articles. Articles 1 and 2 outline the philosophical claim of the UDHR and emphasise that human beings are born free in… Read more »

Amnesty on Enforced Disappearances

by Amnesty International statement to US Congress’ Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission hearing on Latin America, October 1, 2020 https://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/government-relations/advocacy/amnesty-lantos-statement-enforced-disappearances/ … Sri Lanka:  Sri Lanka has one of the world’s highest number of enforced disappearances, with estimates ranging from 60,000 to 100,000 arising in connection with internal armed conflicts since the late 1980s. One emblematic… Read more »