The logic of ‘dialogue amongst moderates’ amid genocide

Sri Lanka was ranked 162nd of the 175 countries in the latest press freedom ranking released by the Paris based Reporters without Borders on Wednesday October 21.

"The video and audio of the events depicted in the Video, were continuous without any evidence of start/stops, insertions, deletions, over recordings, editing or tampering of any kind," said the preliminary findings from a US-based forensic company that took nearly three weeks to analyze the Channel-4 broadcast video allegedly showing SLA soldiers extra-judicially executing Tamil captives stripped naked and hands tied behind their back.

I AM suffering flashbacks of my time at Woomera Detention Centre. Not as a detainee, but as a psychologist and part of the medical team employed to cover contractual requirements to ''manage'' the psychological needs of asylum seekers

"Sri Lanka refugees, we have lived in forest for one month. Please, sir, please take us to a country. It's OK if it is not Australia. It's better if any other country trades us. We can't live in Sri Lanka."

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, criticized the Sri Lankan Government on the issue of "accountability" and for refusing to co-operate “to our many requests for an international investigation of what we say is widespread acts of killing of civilians."

Many of the 76 migrants seized from a ship off the Canadian coast have valid travel documents and legitimate reasons to apply for refugee status in Canada, according to a lawyer who has spoken to them.

The Sri Lanka Peace and Justice Campaign oppose the European Union's possible extension of the GSP + trade programme.

The Sri Lankan government angrily rejected a US state department report containing allegations of human rights abuses in the final days of the country's civil war, saying the document would fan further conflict.

A small percentage of the Tamil refugees held in camps since May have allegedly been released amid growing international pressure on the Sri Lankan Government over its human rights record. But reports from the island suggested that the civilians were merely moved from one place of confinement to another.

Children held in "welfare camps".

A recent US report into alleged war crimes committed during the last days of the war in Sri Lanka has necessitated the need for an independent probe, said the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Donors are increasingly concerned over the conditions in Sri Lanka’s camps for IDPs and are less likely to provide funding if they continue to restrict IDPs’ freedom of movement, say UN officials.

An inquiry similar to one that looked into fighting in Gaza may be needed to determine if war crimes were committed in Sri Lanka in the final throes of its 26-year war this spring, a U.N. office said on Friday, October 23.