Last Monday, Tamil Guardian correspondents Kanapathipillai Kumanan and Shanmugan Thavaseelan were brutally assaulted and hospitalised after working on an important story investigating illegal deforestation in Mullaitivu. Despite their perseverance and courage to continue their work in the face of the incessant scrutiny and intimidation over the years, this latest act of violence – one of the most violent encounters so far this year - adds to the deepening sense of fear and concern for press freedom across the Tamil homeland. The assault has sparked widespread concern - with statements of...
On Monday the 12th of October, two Tamil Guardian correspondents were assaulted and hospitalised in a brutal attack in Mullaitivu. Our two colleagues, Kanapathipillai Kumanan and Shanmugan Thavaseelan, were working on an important story on illegal deforestation when they were set upon and attacked with iron rods. The vicious attack left them both with injuries that required hospital treatment. Both journalists had the evidence they had gathered deleted and money stolen. This assault of our colleagues is yet another blatant attack on the freedom of the Tamil press. It remains completely unacceptable and must be urgently addressed.
Writing in the Australian paper, The Age, Rawan Arraf, Director of the Australian Centre for International Justice, argues that Australia needs a “dedicated and permanent program” to investigate and prosecute war criminals in Australia. This call follows Australia’s Brereton inquiry, an inquiry lead by Major-General Paul Brereton, who has been investigating unlawful killings by Australia’s Special Air Force, since 2016. The inquiry has thus far investigated more than 55 incidents of alleged unlawful killings and cruel treatment of Afghan civilians and captured combatants. Australia’s Federal...
Last week, Tamils across the North-East carried out a hartal , the most widespread protest to take place since Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa came into power, demonstrating against Colombo’s ongoing campaign to ban commemorations of those who gave their lives for Tamil rights. Sri Lankan police ordered businesses across the homeland to re-open, but traders defied the orders, signaling their discontent with the regime. Whilst surveillance and intimidation are not novel techniques used by the governing powers on the island, security forces have recently intensified their crackdown...
Writing in “The Caravan”, Amita Arudpragasam, highlights how increasing militarisation, war loss, and social pressures are increasing the burden on “Tamil women [...] to marry at any cost, which usually means an expensive dowry”
The Indian Express said talks of implementing the 13th Amendment, as discussed between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, is a “charade that isn’t going anywhere” in its editorial last week, as it criticised the “lip service” that both governments pay to resolve the Tamil national question. During the meeting, Modi pushed Sri Lanka to take forwards “the process of reconciliation with the implementation of the 13th Amendment” to which the Sri Lankan PM responded noncommittally maintaining that Sri Lanka would “work towards realising the...
Eleven years since Mullivaikal, the end of Sri Lanka’s armed conflict in which tens of thousands of Tamils were massacred by the military at the behest of the state authorities, Sri Lanka is no closer to delivering transitional justice to the Tamil people or bringing war criminals to justice, writes Professor Kate Cronin-Furman, in the Foreign Affairs magazine. “In its rush to celebrate Sirisena’s election as the dawn of a new democratic era in Sri Lanka, international actors facilitated the entrenchment of impunity and squandered a chance to protect vulnerable people,” writes Cronin-Furman. Whilst the previous government led by Sirisena put up a veneer of commitment towards ensuring accountability, the current Rajapaksa administration with their “unassailable mandate for their Sinhala-Buddhist nationalist politics and militaristic governing style spells disaster for human rights in Sri Lanka,” she adds.
Writing in Jacobin, Abarna Selvarajah and Brannavy Jeyasundara highlight the growing authoritarianism in Sri Lanka as President Gotabaya Rajapaksa plans to bring forwards a 20 th amendment to the constitution which will “expands the role of the presidential office and scales back constitutional checks and balances on executive powers”. The proposed amendment, which has been fiercely criticised, is aimed to replace the existing 19 th amendment, “which limits presidential powers by imposing term limits, [eliminates] presidential immunity from prosecution, and [requires] parliamentary oversight...
I was 11 years old. It was just after lunch on Friday the 22nd of September 1995. That’s when we heard a large aircraft circling our village. The Sri Lankan Air Force dropped the first bomb nearby the school. At this point we were surrounded by large smoke, followed by a bang. There were several bombs dropped over the school and other parts of the village. I heard my friends screaming and running and then all of a sudden the whole place was chaotic. All the students ran in all directions. I can still see it.
On 15th September 1987, Lt. Col. Thileepan, a political wing leader with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), began his hunger strike, demanding that the Indian government honour the pledges it made to the Tamil people. His fast lasted 11 days, during which he was surrounded by over 100,000 supporters. On 26th September 1987, he died. Despite 33 years passing, the original demands he made are still pertinent to issues facing the Eelam Tamil nation. The pledges centered on releasing Tamils detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act; ending the Sinhala colonisation of the North-East...