"Why does justice fail us..." reads poster. Tamils protested in Jaffna on Saturday calling on the international community to find those disappeared by the Sri Lankan state and ensure those in custody are released. "God of Justice open your eyes" reads poster. Photograph Mayurapriyan " World! Don't you have eyes...?" reads poster "Military, leave!" reads poster. Photograph Mayurapriyan
Photograph Mayurapriyan Tamil protesters in Jaffna burnt an effigy of the TNA MP M A Sumanthiran on Saturday, accusing him of helping the new Sri Lankan government to seek a deferral of the report looking into allegations of mass atrocities against the Tamil people during the final stages of the armed conflict.
At least seven people, hailing from the North-East were arrested at the Bandaranaike Airport near Colombo over the last two weeks, according to Thinakkural. A group of six people, who were exiled in Italy, were assaulted by the Terrorism Investigation Department (TID) at the airport, with one 31 year old man from Puttur, Northern Province hospitalised. The others were arrested and had charges filed against them by a court in Negombo and are being held on remand. A 22 year old from Mullaitivu was arrested on February 14, after returning from Dubai. Another person from Australia was also...
The British Deputy High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Laura Davies, described in a blog post her recent trip to the Vanni, highlighting that army welfare shops were everywhere, with private businesses "not easy to find". "Unlike in the rest of Sri Lanka, it is impossible to ignore how recent the end of the conflict was and how raw some of the scars remain," she said, adding that there were "a lot of [Sri Lankan] military memorials". "The need to grieve and to know what happened to missing loved ones remains overwhelming. I met ex-combatants who were socially and economically excluded. Promised releases of political prisoners are slower than people would like," she said.
The Sri Lankan navy will “assist in the conducting” of the annual St Anthony’s Church festival in the North of the island, reported the Ministry of Defence. The annual St Anthony’s Church feast is scheduled to be held in Kachchatheevu on 29 Feb. Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Defence said that under the “the direction of the Defence Ministry and supervision of Navy Commander Vice Admiral Jayantha Perera” the navy would be assisting in the festivities. The festival draws thousands of people from across the North-East of the island and India. The military's ongoing involvement in Tamil affairs almost 6 years after the end of the armed conflict has been widely condemned with numerous calls for the new president, Maithripala Sirisena to demilitarise the North-East. See our earlier posts:
The daughter of a Tamil disappearances activist, Balendran Jeyakumari, who was detained by Sri Lankan security forces ahead of the UN Human Rights Council resolution on Sri Lanka in March 2014, appealed to the new president, Maithripala Sirisena this week to release her mother. "Dear President Maithripala Sirisena, please think of me as your child and release my innocent, very innocent mother. She has not committed any crime. I also humbly request that you release my 3rd brother as well," 14 year old Vipoosika, who is currently housed in a children's home in the North, wrote to the president in a letter dated February 16. "I cannot live without my mother, if I don’t see her I will drink poison and kill myself. I beseech you to please release my mother before that."
There has been no change in policy towards those who attempt to flee Sri Lanka said the island's justice minister, as four asylum seekers who were intercepted at sea by Australian authorities earlier this month were charged with illegally leaving the country. Sri Lanka's minister of justice Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe said that the island's new government would still press charges against all those who attempted to flee the country. “We have not discussed that at all, and such a change is not within the 100 days program of the new government and is not a priority. So there is unlikely to be any change soon. Any returning illegal asylum seeker would have to face the legal process of the country,” Rajapakshe said. Four Tamil asylum seekers were intercepted by Australian authorities near the Cocos islands earlier this month and interviewed at sea by border protection officials. They were then handed over to the Sri Lankan authorities. The move has faced severe criticism from human rights organisations and advocacy groups who state Australia is breaking international law by sending asylum seekers to countries where they may face harm.
The Tamil Civil Society Forum, a network of civil society activists in the North-East, said it was "extremely disappointed" by the UN Human Rights Council decision on Monday to delay the publication of the findings of a UN inquiry into mass atrocities committed against Tamils in Sri Lanka by six months. "Victims who engaged with the OISL see the postponement as completely unnecessary and as a possible final blow to any further search for accountability through international means. Given their lack of confidence in any domestic mechanism delivering on accountability, Tamils are afraid that the delaying of the report signals an end to the hope for accountability, truth and justice in Sri Lanka, in its entirety," the TCSF said in a statement released on Friday. "We wish to point out with utmost disappointment that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Council and the relevant states had ignored the unequivocal request from all sections of the Tamil polity not to delay the release of the report. The announcement of the deferral sadly reminds us of 2008 when the UN left Kilinochchi contrary to the wishes of the local population to remain with them and provide humanitarian protection."
Sri Lanka is once again reviewing a decision to press ahead with the Chinese funded ‘Port City’ project in Colombo, with the docking of Chinese submarines in the capital last year causing “serious suspicion”, said a government minister. The $1.5 billion development project with a Chinese company was agreed during the former president, Mahinda Rajapaksa's term in office, with the development set to include shopping malls and apartments. However, Sri Lanka's current president, Maithripala Sirisena, pledged to cancel the deal, a move that led to investor uncertainty, as doubts rose over the new government's economic policies. Sri Lanka's Power and Energy Minister Champika Ranawaka told a Foreign Correspondents Association forum that though China had played a crucial role in Sri Lanka's development, the island would never become a "tributary state". "There was a serious suspicion because of the submarines,” said the minister , referring to the docking of Chinese submarines in Colombo last year. “If the Colombo port and port city are going to be used for military operation by Chinese government, then it will create serious problem in India and here in Sri Lanka as well," he added.
The Tamil National Alliance spokesperson Suresh Premachandra said over 700 people are being held at a secret army camp, established by Gotabaya Rajapaksa in the North-Eastern town of Trincomalee, Colombo Mirror reported. “Over 20,000 have been forced to disappear during and after the war amid reports that many of them are held in various secret camps elsewhere in the country. We have reliable information that over 700 people have been detained without any outside links at the secret Gota’s camp in Trincomalee,” the MP told parliament on Thursday. “We urge Minister of Law and Order, John Amaratunga to investigate into this reports and reveal the identity of those who are held at this secret camp,” he said.