Posts Categorized: Human Rights

[The question not asked or answered here is, “WHY did they kill Dr. Manoharan’s son?” and “WHY has the cover-up been so thorough?” — Ed/]

The Sri Lankan government has made no real progress in holding accountable those responsible for the execution style slaying of 17 aid workers seven years ago despite renewed international calls for action. On August 4, 2006, gunmen executed 17 Sri Lankan aid workers – 16 ethnic Tamils, four of them women, and a Muslim – with the… Read more »

My fellow Tamil women What have you done for peace in the isle? Take off your clothes and open up your vagina For the Sinhala warriors of the land of Buddha – Poem by an Angry Tamil Woman On February 26th 2013, Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report on sexual violence perpetrated on Tamil… Read more »

Interview by ‘Tamil Guardian,’ London, July 13, 2013 Tamil Guardian’s correspondent based in Toronto, Canada, caught up with the director of the documentaries ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’ and ‘No Fire Zone – the killing fields of Sri Lanka‘, Callum Macrae, at the sidelines of FETNA 2013, to find out how he viewed Sri Lanka’s reaction to… Read more »

Based on the evidence presented to them, the judges said they could make some factual findings, such as that between 40,000 and 100,000 Tamil civilians died in in the final days of fighting in 2009…

In terms of current human rights abuses, the UK ruling said, “year on year, the number of such disappearances is increasing during the peace, rather than decreasing”.

The Prevention of Terrorism Act – a holdover from the 1980s – is one of the main legal tools deployed by the government to silence its critics. Under it, people can be arrested without charge or trial and held for up to 18 months under a detention order, or pending trial – indefinitely. Locked in a sinister limbo and denied the right to a lawyer, they are left vulnerable to torture – despite a constitutional ban on the practice.

Sometimes the authorities eschew legal avenues altogether, harassing and assaulting their critics through anonymous means. Credible reports of people being bundled into white vans by unidentified assailants and later dumped, or never seen again, are alarmingly frequent.

by Amnesty International, London, June 26, 2013 Amnesty Tell the Truth Six Points for CHOGM June 2013 AI index: ASA 37/015/2013 26 June 2013 Four years have passed since the end of the armed conflict in Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan authorities continue to deny mounting evidence of crimes under international law committed by its forces during Sri… Read more »

Several years after the end of the war in Sri Lanka — during which both sides committed gross human rights abuses, including deliberate and indiscriminate attacks against civilians, torture and the use of child soldiers — hundreds of people are languishing in prison without charge or trial under Sri Lanka’s repressive anti-terrorism laws.

Maaveerar Day attacks on Jaffna University students and NESOHR re-launch The North East Secretariat for Human Rights (NESOHR) was born in the northern part of the island of Sri Lanka in July 2004 during an internationally sanctioned ceasefire and it was destroyed in January 2009 in the genocidal war.  Some of NESOHR founding members, who… Read more »

By Ana Pararajasingham, ‘Colombo Telegraph,’ June 6, 203 Preamble: Sri Lanka’s history since its independence from 1948 clearly demonstrates that all Sri Lankan governments were driven by the intent to destroy the distinct identity of the Tamils as a nation[1]. As these actions were underpinned by intent, they clearly fall within the definition of genocide as stipulated… Read more »