By calling on a military accused of egregious rights abuses to lead a public health operation, the Sri Lankan government risks “exacerbating existing ethnic divides, endangering human rights and civil liberties even further, and furthering the violent militarization of the island,” wrote Tamil Guardian's editor-in-chief Thusiyan Nandakumar in the Polis Project this week.
Tamil women “have been protesting for the past three years, demanding army returns their land confiscated during the civil war,” Al Jazeera reports. Chandraleela Jasinthan and her neighbours were forced out of their homes during the last days of the civil war. 10 years later and the army is still occupying their land. “For more than three years, Jasinthan and dozens of other women in Keppapilavu have held one of the longest protests in Sri Lanka’s history at the entrance to an army camp they say was built on their ancestral land.” Keppapilavu protesters denouncing the occupation of their land...
The prospect of the Rajapaksa clan capturing a two-thirds majority in the upcoming Sri Lanka parliamentary elections has left many on the island fearing what the future may hold, reports The Economist this week. “They could roll back constitutional changes brought in by the previous government that trimmed the president’s powers,” it said this week. “They could also, fear some among the 30% of the island’s 22m people who are not part of the Sinhalese Buddhist majority, scrap efforts to reconcile the country’s different ethnicities and religions after the murderous civil war of 1983-2009...
Paul Newey and his son, Dan Newey were both charged for terrorism-related offences in a pretrial hearing last month, as the British government continues to clamp down on people involved with and in support of the Rojava revolution.
“A large number of Tamils in Sri Lanka have died while in protest demanding the government to reveal the fate of their loved ones who are victims of enforced disappearances,”Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) reports. “Already 69 mothers in our protest have died due to stress and various illnesses without finding solution to their grievances,” Leeladevi Anandanadaraja, the General Secretary of the Association for the Relatives of the Enforced Disappeared told the 43rd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). Selvam Sivapakyam, from Mullaitivu, is one of the most...
The Geneva Director of Human Rights Watch urged on the Core Group of countries at the United Nations Human Rights Council to lead the call for an international justice mechanism on Sri Lanka “instead of placing faith in empty government promises”. In a post published this morning, John Fisher said that “it was particularly disappointing that the UN Core Group on Sri Lanka – including the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, North Macedonia, and Montenegro – did not stand by the numerous victims of abuses by calling for renewed Human Rights Council action”. “In its statement, the Core Group merely...
Sri Lanka’s Tamils who are “concentrated in the country’s north say the area still suffers from a lack of development, despite promises by its new President Gotabaya Rajapaksa,” Charles Stratford reports for Al Jazeera. A decade on from the end of the armed conflict, “government promises of investment have all failed to materialise.” Gotabaya is “deeply distrusted” by Tamils due to his role as the Defence Secretary in 2009, where he oversaw the military offensive that killed tens of thousands of Tamils. “Tamils voted overwhelmingly against Rajapaksa in the November election and are trying to...
The election of Gotabaya Rajapaksa as President of Sri Lanka “sent shockwaves across the Tamil-dominated northeast - where memories of his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa's brutal presidency, marked by mass atrocities and enforced disappearances, remain fresh,” writes Mario Arulthas, Advocacy Director at People for Equality and Relief in Lanka (PEARL), in a piece for Al Jazeera this week. “Tamils and Tamil-speaking Muslims went to the polls in large numbers, with the vast majority of the northeastern vote going to Premadasa. But it was not enough for his victory. His opponent, Gota, swept the...
Since the Sri Lankan civil war ending ten years ago, “there has been little progress in tracing those who disappeared during and after the violent end to the war,” the BBC reports. In a video report, the BBC states that around 20,000 Tamils are estimated to still be missing. “Many believe their relatives are alive and in the hands of the security forces - a view rejected by the government. These families meet and hold daily vigils to protest and to keep their relatives’ memories alive.”
Writing in the Tamil Guardian on November 27th, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn speaks on his work with British Tamils and his party's commitment to human rights and justice.