Tamil MPs and activists from the North-East who are in Geneva attending the UN Human Rights Council session currently underway, will be questioned and arrested on return if 'they have made statements detrimental to the unitary character of the state', said a prominent government minister to a Sinhala newspaper - Lakbima. In an article published on Saturday in Sinhala , which has been translated into English and published on TwitLonger by former BBC journalist and author of 'Still Counting The Dead', Frances Harrison, the government minister said that Sri Lanka's intelligence services would be...
India has announced that it has donated 10,000 bicycles to the North-East in order to help “rehabilitate” displaced Tamils, reported the Hindu . The bicycles have been distributed across Mullaitivu, Kilinochchi, Mannar, Vavuniya and Jaffna. Earlier this year British MP Ian Paisley stated he had met with TNA leader R Sampanthan, who had reportedly said, “ the most effective thing that many of his people required was practical help to get bicycles and other tools to help them to work and run their country. That was the message of the man who is leading the opposition”. MP Aidan Burley echoed...
The Ministry of Construction, Engineering Services, Housing and Common Amenities of Sri Lanka announced that 20000 new houses were under construction to aid low income families. The new construction phase is part of the 'Colombo city revival programme' which looks to construct 40,117 houses by the end of this year. The Ministry's active steps to amend living standards in the capital come as disparities in the North-East remain unchanged.
Bangladesh is now India’s largest trade partner in South Asia, replacing Sri Lanka at the top spot, reported The Island on Saturday. According to the paper, analysts blame the deterioration of the commercial relationship between the two countries on “tariff issues and India’s growing tensions with Sri Lanka over the Tamil question" . It also highlights India’s “better ties” with their western neighbour, which has enabled them to allow concessional tariff rates on textiles from Bangladesh. "There has been a fair amount of surge in agricultural commodity exports to Bangladesh. Their exports...
A human rights group in Malaysia has called upon the country to vote against Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, as the vote on the US-sponsored resolution at the council draws closer. Chairman of Suaram, a leading human rights organisation in Malaysia, K. Arumugam said in a press statement, "Malaysia can’t turn a blind eye to this. We have a vote at the UN Human Rights Council and we must vote in favour of a resolution against Sri Lanka". He went on to add, “After the Tamils, the Muslims are now the new targets of attack in Sri Lanka. Malaysia can’t be seen to support a...
The Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice has demonstrated the growing militarisation in the North-East of the island, by releasing a set of info graphics earlier this week. The graphics, released on the group's Facebook page, have been shared hundreds of times in the past few days alone. See their Facebook page here .
A petition by Amnesty International in India, signed by over 1.4 million Indians, has been handed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s office on Friday. "This petition represents the voices of 14 lakh ordinary Indian citizens asking India to play a stronger role in seeking justice in Sri Lanka," said G. Ananthapadmanabhan, the chief executive of Amnesty India. "This is a demand for an end to the impunity for past and present human rights violations in Sri Lanka," he added. The petition urges the prime minister to “stand up for justice in Sri Lanka, and act to end the climate of impunity...
In its editorial on Thursday, The Guardian newspaper, called a row "over the unwisdom of choosing Sri Lanka as host of the next heads of government meeting". See here . Reproduced in full below: The Commonwealth is an organisation which normally bumps along well under the radar. What bounces it into prominence is a row. And the Commonwealth has a history of good rows, over issues that matter, like apartheid in South Africa, judicial murder in Nigeria or dictatorship in Zimbabwe, and on which it has been able to make a difference. Such moments make everyone pay attention to a body that many rather lazily think is not that relevant any longer. Few will remember, for instance, that this Monday is Commonwealth Day. The Commonwealth is about due for another row, and indeed it desperately needs to have one on the unwisdom, weekly becoming more obvious, of choosing Sri Lanka as host for the next heads of government meeting in November this year. Otherwise we may find ourselves in the ludicrous situation of sending the Queen or Prince Charles off to a country which has very serious unresolved human rights charges hanging over it, which has yet to justify executive interference in the judiciary, or has failed to adequately investigate the killing of journalists. When our royals arrive they could therefore be in the unhappy position of giving credit to a gathering from which important countries and close allies, like Canada, may well have chosen to absent themselves. That would be a disaster for them, for Britain, and for the Commonwealth.
Simon Danczuk, MP for Rochdale in the UK, has pledged to urge the Queen to boycott the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting later this year, in protest at the lack of justice for a British man murdered in Sri Lanka in 2011, reports AFP. (See here and here ). The victim, Khuram Sheikh was a Rochdale constituent. Speaking to reporters in Colombo, Danczuk said: "This case has attracted a lot of attention in the UK and people are asking why the wheels of justice have ground to a halt. Why have the suspects all been released on bail and no trial date been set?" " I will press for a boycott of...