Posts Categorized: Human Rights

CPA: Making the Case for an Office for Reparations

by Centre for Policy Analysis, Colombo, June 4, 2018 June 4th 2018, Colombo, Sri Lanka: Reparations are an essential part of transitional justice and focus on recognising and repairing past abuses. In 2015, the Government of Sri Lanka recognised the right to reparations by committing to the establishment of an Office for Reparations through at the… Read more »

ITJP: Families of the Disappeared

by International Truth & Justice Project, South Africa, accessed June 6, 2018 English translation of interviews with families of the disappeared. http://www.itjpsl.com/reports/disappear-site      

Misery as Strategy

The Human Cost of Conflict by International Crisis Group, Brussels, May 31, 2018 In conflicts across the world, levels of displacement and hunger are increasing. The tactics used by leaders, governments and non-state armed groups have much to do with that misery. From Syria to Yemen, from South Sudan to Venezuela, war and political crisis… Read more »

Adayaalam: Tamil Political Prisoners

Suggestions for a Comprehensive Legal Policy Approach by Adayaalam Centre for Policy Research, Jaffna, May 7, 2018 Issue Brief #3 ACPR-Issue-Brief-No.3-Tamil-Political-Prisoners-Suggestions-for-a-Comprehensive-Legal-Policy-Approach-1  I. Introduction Mr. Satchithanantham Ananthasuthakaran, sentenced to life under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) in 2017, was given three hours on the 18th of March 2018 to take part in his wife’s funeral at their residence in… Read more »

How Long Can the GoSL Hoodwink the UN?

And the International Community? by Kumarathasan Rasingam, May 31, 2018 The Sri Lankan State runs on Sinhala Buddhist chauvinism, the Maha Sanga and the Buddhist Clergy. The Sri Lankan State has to obtain the blessings of these people to enact any laws regarding devolution of powers to the Tamils in the North and East of Sri… Read more »

Police, Indian Conglomerate in Spotlight

After protesters gunned down by Ana Pararajasingham, ‘Asia Times,’ Bangkok, May 28, 2018 On Tuesday, May 22, 13 protesters were killed by police in the south Indian city of Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu, shocking the public. The protest, which was peaceful but persistent, was directed at Sterlite Copper, a company owned by UK-based Vedanta Ltd, founded… Read more »

HRW: Police Fatally Shoot Copper Plant Protesters

by Human Rights Watch, May 23, 2018 Investigate Alleged Use of Excessive Force Authorities in India’s Tamil Nadu state should conduct a prompt, impartial, and transparent investigation into the police shooting of protesters against a copper plant that left at least 12 dead and 80 injured, Human Rights Watch said today. Television news video footage shows two plainclothes… Read more »

Allocation of Funds to the OMP

Twice betrayed by Verite Research, ‘Sunday Observer,’ Colombo, May 20, 2018 Sri Lanka’s national budget for 2018 allocated Rs. 1.4 billion to the Office on Missing Persons (OMP).[i] The allocation was viewed as a positive step towards supporting reconciliation mechanisms in Sri Lanka. However, a closer look reveals that the allocation entails two betrayals. The… Read more »

The OMP and the Aspirations of Families

of the Missing and Disappeared But the provisions in the OMP Act make the body nowhere near what was expected in that Resolution. This reminds the writer of the concluding remark in the Final Report of the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) invited by the previous Government to oversee the proceedings of the… Read more »

Tamils to Remember the Dead in Mullivaikkal

by Meera Srinivasan, ‘The Hindu,’ Chennai, May 17, 2018 Northern Province Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran urges them to unite on the ‘tragic’ Remembrance Day Northern Province Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran has called upon Tamils to set aside their differences and participate in the ‘Remembrance Day’ event, remembering those who were killed in Sri Lanka’s civil… Read more »

AI: Release Lists of the Forcibly Disappeared

by Amnesty International, London, May 18, 208 On the ninth anniversary of the end of the war, Amnesty International calls on the government of Sri Lanka to provide information to the families of the disappeared, with detailed lists and information of persons who surrendered to the armed forces in the final phase of the war…. Read more »

The Insistence of Memory

by Kate Cronin-Furman, The Los Angeles Review of Books, May 16, 2018 BY THE TIME I got there, the bones were gone. But eight years out from the end of the Sri Lankan Civil War, everything else was still there, carpeting the beach where the final battle was fought. Suitcases half-buried in sand, battered metal… Read more »

The Rohingya Crisis and the Meaning of Genocide

Despite evidence of systematic violence against the Rohingya, countries remain reluctant to classify the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar’s Rakhine State as genocide. Interview by Camilla Siazon, Kate Cronin-Furman, Interviewee,  Council on Foreign Relations, New York, May 8, 2018 Human rights groups and UN leaders have condemned the violence against Myanmar’s Rohingya ethnic minority as bearing the “hallmarks of… Read more »

New ITJP Website Lists 280 Names of Enforced Disappearance in Sri Lanka

All in one day by International Truth and Justice Project Sri Lanka, South Africa, May 15, 2018 ITJP Press-release-Disappearance-15-May-2018-english Johannesburg: Sri Lanka’s Office of Missing Persons is duty bound to question war-time military leaders over hundreds of cases of enforced disappearance that took place on the final day of the civil war in 2009 if… Read more »

280 Lankan Tamils, including 29 Children, Disappeared in One Day

The International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) website has listed 280 names of enforced disappearances of people in Sri Lanka which included at least 29 children, a release from the ITJP said. by Press Trust of India in ‘Indian Express,’ Mumbai, May 16, 2018 About 280 Tamils, including 29 children, who had surrendered before the… Read more »

SL’s OMP Urged to Probe Star Generals

by Athula Vithanage, ‘Jounalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka, Europe, May 15, 2018 Sri Lanka has been urged to probe two of its highly decorated commanders for the inauguration of the much delayed Office of the Missing Persons (OMP). The OMP that plans to “address the suffering” of a multitude of disappeared commenced meeting victims on… Read more »

NYT: At Least 29 Children Disappeared in Sri Lanka

Rights Group: At Least 29 Children Disappeared in Sri Lanka by The Associated Press in ‘The New York Times,’  May 15, 2018 COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — At least 29 children disappeared in the custody of Sri Lanka’s military after surrendering with their ethnic rebel parents at the end of the island nation’s civil war, a human rights… Read more »

PEARL: ‘Delayed or Denied?

Sri Lanka’s Failing Transitional Justice Process by People for Equality and Relief in Lanka, Washington, DC, May 14, 2018 PEARL’s new report, “Delayed or Denied? Sri Lanka’s Failing Transitional Justice Process”documents Sri Lanka’s failure to fulfill its transitional justice commitments and the complacency with which its intransigence has been received by members of the international community…. Read more »

Reckoning and Reform Loom for Sri Lanka

Pressure mounts to account for past actions in nation where even truth and reconciliation commission is lacking by Kingsley Karunaratne, ‘UCA News,’ May 10, 2018 Though the political turmoil in Sri Lanka has subsided the government has been weakened by a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, raised by a faction from his own… Read more »