Trevor Grant, former chief cricket writer for The Age, has appeared on Radio Australia calling on both Cricket Australia and the Australian government to ban future matches against Sri Lanka, until there is an investigations into the killing of up to 40,000 Tamils in “safe zones” during the latter stages of the armed conflict. He appeared on the show alongside Sri Lanka's high commissioner to Australia Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe. The Admiral was the Sri Lankan Navy's Northern commander during 2009 and himself stands accused of participating in the shelling of civilians. Grant, who has been leading calls for Australia to boycott the Sri Lankan cricket team, said, "This cricket team is part and parcel of maintaining credibility for a government that has been called out on war crimes and crimes against humanity by the UN and continues to persecute Tamils in the Northern and Eastern regions, and what’s more has refused point blank to many requests for independent reviews of things going on in that country”. “We are taking a lesson from the anti-apartheid boycotts back in the 1970s. it has been proven that those boycotts in fact were probably the deciding factor in alienating South Africa so much that apartheid was killed.” “We are trying to create an awareness. We know that this tour cannot be stopped now, but we would like to ask fans to think twice now about going to the game and also we want to government and Cricket Australia to ban future matches against Sri Lanka until things change.” Listen to the full interview here . Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe meanwhile responded, "I categorically, totally deny baseless, unsubstantiated allegations of 40,000 deaths, crimes against humanity, various other allegations… This is a way of bringing discredit to the country, to people with vested interests… The rest of the world should hail Sri Lanka .”
The Power and Energy Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka has slammed US sanctions against Iran, saying they ‘infringe’ on the rights of Sri Lankans. Ranawaka is reported to have made the comments during separate discussions with the Russian and Iranian ambassadors. He told the Iranian ambassador to Sri Lanka that electrification of 1000 villages has been halted due to the sanctions. The minister also defended Iran’s right to nuclear power and said that Iran’s unity in the face of US sanctions is a good example to Sri Lanka. It is unclear from reports whether he was suggesting that his country...
Buddhist monks led a mob of roughly 1000 people to vandalise a church and attack the pastor on 9th December, reported the Morning Star. According to the Morning Star, the monks had given the church one day's notice to close down, proclaiming to the pastor that permission from Buddhist clergy was needed for Christian worship. When the church refused, 80 monks led the mob to Jeevanalokaya Sabhawa church in the Weeraketiya area of the southern province of Hambantota on Sunday, and destroyed the church's furniture, equipment and vehicles, resulting in damages of upto US $4000. Despite the...
A Japanese national was arrested on Thursday by Sri Lankan police at Mount Lavinia for having printed 42 postcards with a panda replacing the lion on the Sri Lankan flag. The man accused of this shocking crime was reportedly arrested whilst he was in the process of mailing his goods. He will be produced in front of Mount Lavinia Magistrate on Thursday.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi met with Sri Lanka’s Minister of Industry and Commerce Rishad Bathiyutheen, calling for the two countries to expand their relationship. Salehi stated on Monday, "The Islamic Republic of Iran is fully ready for supporting and evermore expansion of comprehensive cooperation with Sri Lanka, particularly in political, economic, commercial, transit, and joint investments fields," His statement comes as Sri Lanka’s Ceylon Petroleum Corporation stated that they have only received one shipment of oil from Iran since June due to sanctions placed on the country...
In a report published on Thursday following a recent visit, the Australian Human Rights Commission said it " continues to hold serious concerns about the appropriateness of holding asylum seekers in immigration detention on Christmas island ." Asserting that the conditions are " not appropriate for asylum seekers ", the Commission stated it "has ongoing concerns about the prison-like nature of the Christmas Island Immigration Detention Centre (IDC), the harsh conditions in the Aqua and Lilac compounds, and the inappropriateness of the Construction Camp as a place for accommodating families with children and unaccompanied minors ." It went on to highlight " significant overcrowding ", concerns around a lack of sufficient mental health services to keep pace with a growing demand, and that children " continue to be subjected to mandatory detention on Christmas Island, in breach of Australia’s obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) ," as key issues. In the Aqua Compound - a one of the 'secure' immigration detention facility - the Commission found that single adult men were being housed along side families with children, which the Commission felt may lead to a further breach of the CRC. Thirty-five children were reported to be housed in this 'secure' compound. Most family groups are housed within the Construction Camp, a 'low security detention facility'. On this visit, the Commission detailed that 1989 people were in current detention, included 315 children, and 944 people from the island of Sri Lanka.
The newly opened Nandarama Tamil Dhamma School in Jaffna has appealed for more funds, reported the government-owned Daily News website. The school which was built by the Sri Lankan Army and supported by the All Ceylon Buddhist Congress Vice President Sudath Madugalle was constructed to help “Northern children”, who have reportedly shown “great keenness in attending Dhamma lessons”. See the Daily News article “ Northern children keen to learn Dhamma ” here . Photograph: Picture by Ruwan De Silva from Daily News. The Nandarama Tamil Dhamma School in Jaffna, complete with photograph of President...
British retail giant Tesco has decided to give every little help to Sri Lanka's genocide by picking 23 exporters from the island for its hardlines categories. The world’s third biggest retailers has agreed the deals and hinted at further expansion in Sri Lanka, at a time when calls for a boycott of the country are growing. “I am impressed with the professionalism of Sri Lanka’s Industry Ministry and its DoC [Department of Commerce]. From day one of our arrival, everything went smoothly with top coordination and we achieved our mission in Colombo quickly thanks to their sleek professionalism...
The Sri Lankan state has relentlessly continued to consolidate its militarisation of the North-East since the armed conflict drew to a close in 2009. Regardless of international efforts at closed door diplomacy and the occasional public wrist slapping, the Sri Lankan state has shown no signs of relenting. The burgeoning military budget, the grabbing of civilian lands for military housing and establishments, and the military’s saturating presence within everyday civilian life has continued; not only contrary to well-trodden paths of post-conflict reconciliation, but in brazen defiance of international criticism. The significance of militarisation of the North-East however, goes beyond these measurable markers and tangible concerns. The end of the armed conflict has not proved to be a window of opportunity, to ensure equal rights for all citizens or create a ‘terrorism’-free liberal democracy. Instead it has been exploited by the Sri Lankan state as an opportunity to orchestrate the unhindered expansion of Sinhala Buddhist hegemony. Delirious with victory, the state, armed with its military, has embarked on an uncompromising goal of asserting a Sinhala Buddhist identity throughout the island and ruthlessly erasing any expression of an Eelam Tamil one.
Trevor Grant, a former chief cricket writer at The Age appeared on Australian ABC New’s “The Drum” show, calling for Australia to boycott the Sri Lankan cricket team, as calls for a sporting boycott continue to spread. Grant, who also works with the Refugee Action Collective, stated on the show, “This cricket team is really part and parcel of maintaining the credibility a government that has already been called out on war crimes and crimes against humanity by the UN, and it continues to persecute the Tamils in the Northern and Eastern regions of Sri Lanka.” See his interview here from 35 minutes 30 seconds onwards. When asked about why Tamil cricket players Muttiah Muralitharan and Angelo Matthews have not spoken out boycotting Sri Lankan cricket, Grant responded, “No they haven’t said that. They prefer to stay silent. Because in our opinion, their cricket careers are more important, than this issue to them." " They try and say that politics and sport should be separated, but we all know, anybody who has worked in sport, like I have for 40 years, knows that they are inextricably entwined." When questioned regarding how the South African sporting boycott was based on the country’s racist selection policies, and how such a policy does not overtly exist in Sri Lanka, Grant replied, “There is still very much an issue of war crimes and this leads into the issue of selection, though it’s not about selection at the selection table, b ut it is about selection of Tamils." "There has been only something like half a dozen of Tamils play cricket for Sri Lanka over the past 20 or 30 years. What’s the reason for it?" "Well I think if you look at an oppressed minority, like the Tamils have been for so long, they love cricket the Tamils, but they never get the chance, they never get the conditions for their children to come through to try and match the majority Sinhalese when they get to selection and that sort of thing in junior teams. The facilities and all that are much worse for Tamils." Trevor grant also wrote for The Age earlier this week calling for a sporting boycott of Sri Lanka. Extracts from his piece “Australia must go in to bat for Tamils” , have been reproduced below. See his full piece here . “It is now time for Australian consciences to be pricked, as the Sri Lankan cricketers prepare for star billing against Australia in three Tests this summer, in Hobart, Melbourne and Sydney.”