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Buddhist mob disrupts meeting for families of disappeared Tamils

Updated 15:34


A second meeting for families of the disappeared from the North was cancelled over concerns of safety, after mobs led by Buddhist monks disrupted a similar meeting held earlier today in Colombo where Tamil families were meeting with international diplomats.

 

Picture: @Mari_deSilva

Activists and journalists who were at the meeting, reported via Twitter, that the mob charged into the meeting and shouted abuse at the Tamil relatives of the disappeared.

Members of the mob took photographs of the Tamils at the meeting.

“You are selling our motherland for dollars. You are supported by the USA to give evidence at [the] war crimes panel,” the protestors shouted, an independent journalist, Dushi Yanthini, reported.

Diplomats from the US, UK and the EU, including the Acting Deputy Chief of the US mission, Mike Honigstein, witnessed the incident.

Condemning the incidents of mob intimidation, the Deputy Chief of the US Mission consoled Tamil families and said that he would raise the issue with the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister, tweeted Dushi Yanthini.

"You have seen first hand what has happened today. The world has seen it as well," Mike Honigstein further added.

The monks claimed they disrupted the meeting as those in attendance were the families of fallen LTTE cadres, tweeted Azzam Ameen, a journalist with the BBC. 

 

 

One journalist described the Tamils present as “terrified”, with many in tears as the mob surrounded them and shouted. 

Five members of the NGO’s organising committee were summoned by police despite the organisers' refusals. They were taken to a police station, Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka reports.

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