A memorial event was held at the Mannar International Organization on Tuesday, to pay tribute to P.A. Antony Mark, Senior Tamil journalist and human rights activist from Mannar who passed away last month, at the age of 78 due to COVID.
During this event, many politicians and civil society leaders including Mannar Divisional Secretariat, Stanley De Mel paid their respects to the journalist.
“Antony Mark is a journalist, who selflessly dedicated himself to the people,” said Stanley De Mel adding his loss,“ is a great loss for the people of Mannar.”
“He is well versed in multiple languages and if Sinhala translation was required for any event, we could depend on him.”
“Through his writing on agriculture and irrigation, he has passed on important history and traditions to the next generation [...} he was an example of how an honest civil servant should behave.”
“Although he served for 33 years as a land officer [...], he spent most of his life in rented houses without a piece of his own land [because] he wholly dedicated himself to the Mannar district.”
Antony Mark was, “someone who, without any expectation, fought for [Tamil] people and their rights because he was proud of his ethnicity and language [...] we express our deepest condolences for his loss.”
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