UNITED NATIONS — Sri Lanka’s new government, whichswept into power in January on a platform of national reconciliation, is lobbying to quash — or at least defer for a few months — a landmark United Nations inquiry into war crimes set to be released in March. That presents a delicate problem for United Nations officials… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Human Rights
Parliament Briefed over Judiciary
The Government today informed Parliament that it needs to convince the world that it has a judiciary that is competent, independent and impartial which can rank among the best anywhere in the world Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera said that it needs a good judiciary in order to convince the international community that Sri Lanka is quite capable of dealing with… Read more »
A Chance for Justice in Sri Lanka?
Decisions like these are often premised on a misguided belief that, in post-conflict environments, it is necessary to choose between justice and peace. But this is a false choice. Sri Lanka must deal with the deep and languishing divisions created by past human right abuses. A policy of impunity does the opposite and would be a grave mistake.
TNA Reiterates its Call for an International Investigation for Tamil Killings
COLOMBO, SRI LANKA, January 28, 2015 /EINPresswire.com/ — The Main Tamil political party in Sri Lanka, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) reiterated its call for an international investigation for the mass killings of Tamils during the last phase of the war that ended in mid-2009. Mr. Suresh Premachandran, Member of Parliament and spokesperson for TNA made… Read more »
Building Credible Mechanisms for Domestic Accountability and Transitional Justice
However, given the Sri Lankan State’s persistent unwillingness and inability to credibly address impunity, those who wish to see a meaningful process of righting wrongs in Sri Lanka must demand that the Government make tangible commitments and progress towards addressing victims’ demands for justice.
A mere commitment to conduct a credible process without the necessary legal, institutional and policy reforms must not be accepted at face value. This article outlines the key reforms necessary to ensure that the Government’s promise of a credible domestic process results in a break with the past.
An opportune moment for the Government to make these commitments formally may be at the sessions of the Human Rights Council where the report of the international inquiry on Sri Lanka will presented.
HRW: Rajapaksa Legacy of Abuse
by Human Rights Watch, New York, January 29, 2015 The Sri Lankan government stepped up pressure in 2014 on human rights activists and journalists, particularly those urging justice for past war crimes, Human Rights Watch said in its World Report 2015 released today. A new government, elected in January 2015, should order investigations into arbitrary… Read more »
CJP Calls for Release of Prisoners, Accountability and Resettlement
The Commission for Justice & Peace of the Catholic Diocese of Jaffna has called for the release of political prisoners, accountability for those killed or disappeared during the war and for the resettlement of people back in their land, in an open letter to Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena. Writing to the newly elected president,… Read more »
“Maithree” and “Yahapalanaya” for Navy-occupied Mullikulam?
Last week, I went to Mullikulam, a beautiful and resourceful village in the Mannar district, which has been illegally occupied by the Navy for more than 7 years. It was my first visit for more than a year. The people didn’t seem to have any fresh hopes of reuniting as one community, regaining their lost… Read more »
Legal Case of Tamil Genocide
Legal-Case-of-the-Tamil-Genocide_30-December-2014 The Legal Case of the Tamil Genocide January 6, 2015 by UNROW Human Rights Impact Litigation Clinic Leave a Comment Full PDF version available here By UNROW Human Rights Impact Litigation Clinic The UNROW Human Rights Impact Litigation Clinic, an impact litigation clinic of American University Washington College of Law, has advocated and litigated… Read more »
Helping Sri Lanka’s New Democracy
Sri Lanka’s voters shocked themselves and the world this month by tossing out their president, who crushed the Tamil insurgency in 2009 and then led the country, along with his brother as defense secretary, to the brink of authoritarianism. The new president has promised to restore freedom of the press, independence of judges, and the… Read more »
Amnesty USA’s HR Concerns
http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/countries/asia-and-the-pacific/sri-lanka Sri Lanka Human Rights Human Rights Concerns Sri Lanka’s brutal 26-year civil war between the government forces and separatists from the Tamil minority ended with a government victory in May 2009. During the war, both sides committed gross human rights abuses, including war crimes, for which no one has been held accountable. Enforced disappearances… Read more »
No Justice for Kumar Ponnambalam
No justice for assassinated human rights lawyer Kumar Ponnambalam, 15 years on Fifteen years after Kumar Ponnambalam, a prominent human rights lawyer and leader of the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC) was assassinated in a busy Colombo suburb during Chandrika Kumaratunge’s government, his killers have not been brought to justice. Mr Ponnambalam, who was renowned… Read more »
A Century of Silence
by Raffi Khatchadourian, ‘The New Yorker,’ January 5, 2015 …The news of the city’s changed atmosphere came quietly, five or six years ago, with the unlikely talk that Sourp Giragos was going to be rehabilitated as a functioning church—even though there was no congregation for it anymore. Then, in 2011, an item in the Armenian… Read more »
Cosmetic Fixes
by Taylor Dibbert, ‘Foreign Policy,’ Washington, DC, October 31, 2014 SOUTH ASIA Sri Lanka’s twenty-six-year civil war was a brutal conflict that pitted the Sri Lankan government forces against the Tamil Tigers, a group that fought for a separate state in the country’s northern and eastern provinces. Though the government defeated the Tamil Tigers in… Read more »
OHCHR Condemns Persistent Disinformation Designed to Discredit UN investigation on Sri Lanka
GENEVA (7 November 2014) – UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein on Friday criticized the continuing attacks by the Sri Lankan Government on the integrity of the UN Human Rights Office’s ongoing investigation into alleged grave human rights violations and abuses in Sri Lanka, and condemned the intimidation of human rights… Read more »
CBK Waged ‘Mother of All Wars’ – Rev. Dr. Emmanuel
Last week, The Island partly dealt with Rev. Dr. S. J Emmanuel’s thoughts on the collapse of talks between the government of the then President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and LTTE leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, in April 1995. The priest blamed Mrs. Kumaratunga for the breakdown of talks. Rev. Dr. Emmanuel’s views, on the conflict, are relevant,… Read more »
The Road to Justice
by Committee to Protect Journalists, New York, October 28, 2014 The lack of justice in hundreds of murders of journalists around the world is one of the greatest threats to press freedom today. While international attention to the issue has grown over the past decade, there has been little progress in bringing down rates of… Read more »
Amnesty: UN Review Highlights
by Amnesty International, London, October 30, 2014 Amnesty UN review AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC STATEMENT Index: ASA 37/014/2014 30 October 2014 Sri Lanka: UN review highlights ongoing human rights abuse and impunity The UN Human Rights Committee review of Sri Lanka has once again highlighted the vast disconnect between Sri Lanka’s promises to Sri Lankan citizens… Read more »
Status of SL Commission on Disappearances
Media Freedom in Sri Lanka
Watch this powerful talk by Lukshmee Saravanapavan on media freedom in Sri Lanka at the Amnesty International USA conference in St. Louis, Missouri on Oct. 25. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152822022459948&set=vb.682819947&type=2&theater or http://youtu.be/a72EU396Z_I —————- For more information on Amnesty’s concerns in Sri Lanka, please visit www.amnestyusa.org/srilanka