The European Union has called on Sri Lanka to allow visits to the island from UN special mandate holders, in a statement released to mark World Human Rights Day. Welcoming visits to the island by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Special Envoy on Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, the statement urged to government of Sri Lanka to further grant outstanding requests for UN access, highlighting in particular the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. The statement also noted that, “further challenges also remain in upholding the independence and...
The Guardian, today, interviewed the private public relations and marketing known for working with the Sri Lankan government and many other regimes, Bell Pottinger. When asked if Bell Pottinger was still working for the Sri Lankan government, the chairman, Tim Bell, said , “We stopped in..2009 or 2010. I might have got the dates wrong.” “It’s a fashionable thing to criticise the way the Sri Lankan government has behaved. David Cameron had one meeting in the north of the country with 200 people who have lost relatives You have to remember there was a 30 year civil-war. The Tamil Tigers weren’t...
Displaced Tamils vented their anger at the leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), R. Sampanthan, on Monday, whilst he was visiting the Kattai Parichchan IDP camp near Sampoor. Calling on the their political representation to act, the people said , “ We are ready to die to recover Sampoor... r eclaim the places that we were born in. We are ready to starve ourselves to death in order to reclaim our taken land ” Thousands of people from East Sampoor were displaced in 2006 and have been settled in IDP camps for over 3 years. Of the ones that have been settled into homes, none have been...
Families of the disappeared protesting at the Trincomalee Bus Station were attacked by masked men, today. The demonstrators, whose protest coincided with international Human Rights Day, sustained several injuries, resulting in the organiser, Sundara Mahendran, being admitted to hospital. Media reports outline that the masked attackers shouted slogans, such as “Go and hold your protests in Jaffna. The east is ours.”
Published 09:36 GMT The Permanent People's Tribunal on the genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka continues this morning in Bremen, Germany. Watch the live feed from the PPT website 09:00-13:30 (GMT+1) here . The Permanent People’s Tribunal (PPT), an international body based in Rome, is headed by Secretary General Gianni Tognoni. See here for more about the PPT and the panel.
The External Affairs Minister, G.L Peiris, reiterated Sunday, that the Sri Lankan government would not accept international pressure and demands from the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. Addressing a parliamentary debate on Sri Lankan external affairs, G.L Peiris, said , “We are not about to bow down to the plans to take our country before Geneva very six months. We are not ready to bow down to pressures of this sort. " Arguing that an international probe into war crimes and crimes against humanity would undermine Sri Lankan 'prestige', he added, “We have brilliant, intelligent...
The Northern Provincial Council Minister for Agriculture, Livestock and Water Supply, P Iyngaranesan has refused to hoist the Sri Lankan flag at an event in Mannar. The minister was chief guest at the event in a school in Vellangulam. According to the Colombo Gazette , Iyngaranesan said the flag does not represent the Tamil people in Sri Lanka and as long as the lion with a sword in its hand remains on the flag, it will be rejected by Tamils. The TNA leader Sampanthan has previously defended his waving of the Sri Lankan flag at a May Day rally in 2012. NPC ministers condemn Army's involvement...
The Buddhist monk organisation, the United Bhikku Front (UBF), issued a stern warning to the UNP's Sajith Premadasa to stop acting against the party's newly appointed Leadership Council or else face 'stern action', reported Colombo Page . Speaking at the UBF press conference today, the organisation's General Secretary, the monk, Bopitiye Dhammissara Thero, warned Premadasa to refrain from acting against party unity. The Leadership Council was set up under the patronage of Buddhist monks, to save Sri Lanka's faltering opposition party from collapse. The party has struggled to compete for...
A statue of a Sinhala soldier, Corporal Gamini Kularatna, appeared recently as a new addition to Sri Lanka's war victory monument in Elephant Pass, situated within the Tamil region of the North-East, reported the Jaffna based newspaper, Uthayan .
Sri Lanka has announced that a ‘National Inquiry on Torture’ has been postponed indefinitely, after requests from several ‘civil society organisations’, reported the Sunday Leader. The inquiry was expected to conduct investigations into allegations of torture that occurred during the final phases of the armed conflict to the present day. It was hailed by Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma, as a an initiative that would work towards “national reconciliation” with assistance from the Commonwealth Secretariat. There is no word as to when the inquiry will, if ever, start. A source...