Relatives of missing hold up pictures (Pictures: TamilNet)

Relatives of people that had disappeared during and after the war in Vanni staged a protest in Jaffna on Human Rights Day on Friday.

Hundreds of soldiers and policemen across the peninsula harassed civilians in an attempt to intimidate and block the protest from going ahead, TamilNet reported.

The protest is the latest sign of simmering anger and injustice felt by Tamils in the North-East.

However, the growing defiance and peaceful protests staged by the Tamil people, continue to be repressed by the Sri Lankan government and ignored by the Sinhala press.

At a discussion hosted by the Asia Society on December 6, 2011, documentary filmmaker Callum Macrae, Malinda Seneviratne, Editor-in-Chief of Sri Lanka's The Nation, and Bob Templer of the International Crisis Group present and assess both the Sri Lankan government and international community's perspectives on that country's decades-long sectarian conflict. Tunku Varadarajan, editor of Newsweek International, moderates the discussion. (1 hr, 16 min.) 

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillai, has deferred a planned visit to Sri Lanka.

Speaking to reporters in New York on Friday she said there should be accountability for the crimes committed during the war on the island.

Commenting on the invitation she received from the Sri Lankan government to visit the country, she said she will not visit until Sri Lanka’s report by the LLRC (Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission) is first made public by President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

‘Footage shows photographs of sexually abused women upon whom the military exercise a further act of domination with the camera. In one film taken on a smartphone soldiers are recorded throwing the bodies of dead females into a truck, rating their bodies as they fling them into a pile.

This objectification and absolute disrespect for the dead is emphasised once again by the presence of the lens, which is said to be recording the acts as ‘trophy footage’. The filming of brutal executions by the perpetrators is another decisively symbolic act of power.

Richard Howitt, who led a delegation of fellow European parliamentarians on a visit to Sri Lanka, says that the Colombo government is restricting access to vast areas of the north of the island to prevent the discovery of the many civilian dead buried there.

“What everyone says is that it’s because [it is] literally where the bodies are buried, and that if people with forensic skills go in and investigations start, then the true horrors of what happened in those final days with so many innocent civilians said to have been killed absolutely unnecessarily, that that would come out and that the Sri Lankans will do everything to prevent that” he siad.

The delegation was able to visit parts of the North-East, but was not allowed to enter military exclusion zones.

Civilians from the affected regions will not be allowed to resettle in their homes for the foreseeable future, Mr Howitt told the BBC. (see report here)

A member of parliament from the main opposition UNP has spoken out against the proposed ban on the import of wheat.

Harsha de Silva said the government’s plan would mostly affect Tamils, as they were the highest consumers of wheat products on the island.

"The statement by the Prime Minister that wheat flour imports should be banned is an irresponsible statement and must be retracted," de Silva said.

"While it may be his choice to consume only rice, or he wishes more people in this country ate rice, he must be made aware that some people in Sri Lanka are totally dependent on wheat flour."

"Even though price of wheat flour doubled since then to close to Rs 85 a kilogram currently, the HIES for the year 2010 found that estate Tamil households consumption only fell marginally to 15.4 kilograms per month," de Silva said.

"The 2010 data, which covers the entire island, also show that the household wheat flour consumption in the Jaffna district was 19.3 kilograms per month while in Vavuniya it was 18.1 kilograms per month."

Responding to calls for the LLRC report to be made public, Sri Lankan government spokesperson, Keheliya Rambukwella criticised such calls as an "indecent hurry" and asserted that the report would be presented in parliament at the "appropriate time".

"We do not agree with the view that there should be an indecent hurry to make it public", said Rambukwella.

"The 9/11 commission in the US took five years to release its report", he added.