The father of a forcibly disappeared Tamil died this week, becoming the eighth parent to die while searching for their child since protests began last year. 74-year-old Nagalingam Sathiyavageswaran passed away on Wednesday after being admitted to Jaffna Teaching Hospital with sudden chest pains on Monday. Mr Sathiyavageswaran had been searching for his son, S. Rajivan who was abducted by white van outside the family home in Thirunelveli, Jaffna, in 2006. The son had been abducted just 15 days after his marriage. Giving a statement at the presidential commission’s hearings in 2014, Mr...
Tamils and Muslims across the North-East protested on Thursday, calling for an end to atrocitities in Syria.
A Tamil asylum seeker who was deported from Australia last week continues to face harassment and intimidation from Sri Lankan security forces, The Guardian reported. Shantaruban was interrogated by Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officers for over four hours upon his arrival to Colombo last Thursday, and since then he has been visited twice by security officials. His phone was checked and they interrogated him further about his whereabouts during the end of the armed conflict, the paper reported. Read more here .
Just as the UN Human Rights Council's 37th session commences in Geneva, the Sri Lankan president appointed commissioners to the Office of Missing Persons (OMP). Mr Saliya Pieris was appointed as the Chairman of the Commission. Other commissioners included Ms Jayatheepa Punniyamoorthy, Major General (Rtd.) Mohanti Antonette Peiris, Dr Sriyani Nimalka Fernando, Mr Mirak Raheem, Mr Somasiri K Liyanage, Mr Somasiri K Liyanage and Mr Kanapathipillai Venthan. The appointments have been widely criticised by Tamil civil society groups for the inclusion of military personnel and the presence of only...
Hundreds of Tamil protestors marched to the DS office in Mullaitivu this week, to protest against the Sri Lankan military’s continued occupation of land in the North-East.
Sri Lankan security forces have continued to use torture against Tamils on the island, reports Al Jazeera, who has uncovered allegations and evidence of torture. In a piece by Barnaby Phillips, Al Jazeera interviewed Tamils who had been beaten, burnt with cigarettes and raped. A support group in London has helped at least 76 Tamils with rehabilitation activities, all of whom say they were tortured within the last three years, since the current Sri Lankan government came into power. “You see a very systematic pattern of violations across the country,” said Frances Harrison, a human rights...
The Sri Lankan military’s continued occupation of land in the Vanni is threatening traditional livelihoods in local communities said a new report launched by the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) and the National Fisheries Solidarity Movement (NAFSO) in Mullaitivu. The report, entitled “The Vanni: Civilian Land under Military Occupation”, states that “although the war ended nine years ago, the military in the Northern Province still occupies vast stretches of land and is using it for economic purposes, among other things, with serious consequences”. “Countless people are still unable to...
Families of the disappeared protesting in Mullaitivu have reported an increase in surveillance and intimidation by Sri Lankan intelligence personnel, as their protest approaches its one year mark.
A Tamil university student was found hanging in his residence in Jaffna on Tuesday. The student was identified as Samuel, originally from Vavuniya but resident in Kantharmadam, and a student at the Medical Faculty of Jaffna University. Jaffna police have said they are investigating the death.
The Tamil National Alliance on Wednesday condemned attacks on Muslim shops and a mosque by Sinhala mobs in Amparai earlier this week. "I strongly condemn the attacks carried out against the Muslim community in Ampara," the TNA leader, R Sampanthan said in a statement. "I urge the government to take stern action against the perpetrators of the violence in Ampara and to take adequate meausures to prevent such incidents being repeated in future." "We have witnessed such incidents in the past and we have experienced the repurcussions of such unacceptable behaviour and actions. I urge the police...