Lawyers representing Tamil families of the disappeared in Mannar have called for “caution in place of plain speculation”, after a report dated bone fragments from a mass grave unearthed in the town.
Families of the disappeared appealed to members of the United Nations not to grant Sri Lanka any extension on implementing a resolution it had agreed to in 2015 and instead called for an international accountability mechanism, telling member states that “our lives are in your hands”.
A five member delegation of the Sri Lankan president is to head to Geneva in order to seek a withdrawal from the co-sponsored resolution at the UN Human Rights Council, the country's foreign affairs ministry said today.
Families of the disappeared in Vavuniya, who launched a signature campaign calling for international intervention in Sri Lanka to ensure justice for Tamils, reached 100,000 signatures this week.
Residents in Unnichchai and surronding villages protested on Monday, accusing the government of failing to provide an adequate supply of clean drinking water.
Tamil diaspora organisations yesterday welcomed the report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on Sri Lanka, which concluded that there had been "virtually no progress" on the investigations of war crimes as detailed in the co-sponsored resolution 30/1.
The US-based advocacy group PEARL (People for Equality and Relief in Lanka) have launched “Sinhalization of the North-East”, a series on demographic changes in the Tamil homeland.
Presenting and analysing data gathered by PEARL researchers, the series examines how Sinhalisation and militarisation is used to deliberately shift the demographics of Tamil and Muslim areas.
Sri Lanka's former navy commander, Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda arrived at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) this morning to make a statement over the abduction of 11 youths in 2008 - 2009.
In the week when Tamils across the North-East were preparing to condemn Sri Lanka’s failure to progress on accountability and justice, including its failure to demilitarise the Tamil homeland, with widespread protests, the Sri Lankan army held a Sinhala-language workshop on ‘modern social etiquette’, ‘western dress code’, leadership and drug prevention with 300 Tamils in its occupying headquarters in Palaly.
A decade after the end of the armed conflict, only 12 percent of police officers in the Northern province speak Tamil, the Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police Roshan Fernando admitted this week.
