Accountability

The Special Envoy of the President for Human Rights Mahinda Samarasinghe addressing the Third Committee meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York today expressed Sri Lanka’s concerns about the transparency of the UN Human Rights Council.The Minister addressed “the issue of transparency and fair dealing in relation to its support structure and […]

Natasha Chaku  Disclosing that the next meeting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) will go ahead in Sri Lanka in 2013, Australian foreign minister Kevin Rudd today said some nations may boycott it. “It will be a matter for individual governments how they then view matters unfolding in Sri Lanka between now and when […]

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today reiterated the importance of dealing with accountability issues as Sri Lanka continues to work towards national reconciliation following its long-running civil war. Mr. Ban stressed the point during a meeting at United Nations Headquarters with Mahinda Samarasinghe, the Special Envoy of the President of Sri Lanka on Human Rights. The meeting […]

Matthew Russell Lee,  UNITED NATIONS, October 26 — After Sri Lanka’s special envoy Mahinda Samarasinghe met Wednesday morning with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Inner City Press asked him how the meeting had gone. Video here and below.“Constructive,” he called it, saying that the government’s Lessons Learnt & Reconciliation Commission report, due November 15, will […]

AUSTRALIA is arguing for the Commonwealth to be given greater powers to stop member nations engaging in military coups and human rights abuses, rather than persist with the present system of suspending nations only once they have transgressed.The Foreign Minister, Kevin Rudd, made the call yesterday as Australia argued behind closed doors for the Commonwealth […]

Shamindra Ferdinando  President Mahinda Rajapaksa yesterday evening urged the international community to follow the Dutch example in dealing with the LTTE seeking to destabilise Sri Lanka.Addressing a section of the Sri Lankan community based in Australia at the Winthrop Hall in Perth, Western Australia, President Rajapaksa said that there couldn’t be a better recent example […]

Jamie Reese [JURIST] Australian Attorney-General Robert McClelland [official website] refused Tuesday to allow a war crimes case against Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa [official website]. McClelland’s announcement was in response to charges filed [JURIST report] by an Australian citizen claiming that during the 2009 Sri Lankan civil war, civilian targets were intentionally bombed by military […]

Recommendations are the most important section of all alternative reports that have been submitted to the CAT.  These recommendations represent a summary the expectations and bench marks for the campaign to stop torture in Sri Lanka. The four reports submitted by following organisations include comprehensive set of recommendations. the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), the […]

III.CONCLUDING RECOMMENDATIONSThe Panel of Experts’ Report provides evidence that suggest violations both of Sri Lanka’s negative obligation to refrain from committing torture and ill-treatment and its positive obligation to prevent and respond to such violations. Implementation of these positive duties flowing in particular from articles 2, 12, 13, 14 and 16 are still outstanding, namely  […]

After four emotional weeks in court and another two weeks of quiet deliberation, the trial against 5 Dutch-Tamil Sri Lankans in The Hague, charged with supporting the Tamil Tigers movement, ended in disappointment for both sides. Richard Walker, The HagueNo one happy The men were convicted of supporting a criminal organisation and sentenced from 2 to 6 […]

A war crimes case filed against the Sri Lankan president in an Australian court cannot proceed without the federal government’s consent, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard says. Sri Lankan-born Australian citizen Arunachalam Jegatheeswaran has lodged a war crimes indictment against President Mahinda Rajapaksa in the Melbourne Magistrates Court.The move came as Mr Rajapaksa was due […]

Indrani BagchiIndrani Bagchi, India will oppose a Commonwealth report that seeks to establish a monitoring group for member countries on human rights, democracy and rule of law. At the Commonwealth summit in Perth this week, India is working the diplomatic levers to make the case that such groups are beyond the mandate of the 54-nation […]

Mark Kennedy Sri Lanka is scheduled to host the next Commonwealth summit in 2013, but the country is under attack for alleged human rights violations and war crimes in the final days of its civil war with the Tamil Tigers in 2009. It is refusing to heed calls for an international investigation into those allegations, which […]

Jerry Votava [JURIST] An Australian citizen has filed two counts of war crimes charges against Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa [official website] for abuses that he allegedly witnessed in 2007 and 2008 as the Sri Lankan civil war drew to a close. Jegen Warran claims to have witnessed intentional attacks [ABC News report] by Sri […]

CONCLUSIONSTRIAL respectfully submits to the Committee Against Torture that the current state of Sri Lankan legislation does not fully implement the Convention Against Torture, due to the absence of a definition of torture in conformity with Article 1 of the Convention,the absence of provisions providing jurisdiction over foreigners present in Sri Lanka who have not […]

October 2011  The Tamil Information Centre (TIC) welcomes the opportunity to provide information to assist the Committee in its consideration of the Sri Lankan government’s third and fourth periodic reports under article 19 of the Convention. TIC is a non-profit organisation based in London, UK. TIC works to address the challenges that face the Tamil […]

”A 63-year-old retired engineer who was caught up in the fighting at the end of the civil war says he saw hospitals and other civilian infrastructure in both Tamil-held areas and no-fire zones being deliberately attacked by Sri Lankan forces. ”An Australian citizen who says he saw hospitals deliberated attacked by Sri Lankan forces has […]

 (Reuters) – Meena Krishnamurthy still remembers the coloured slippers littered in the dirt around a bombed-out orphanage in Sri Lanka and a legless teenage girl unable to leave her dirt bunker, begging for a drink of nearby contaminated water.Then there were the bodies, too many to count, including her own stillborn baby which she was […]

Controversial film that featured graphic footage of alleged war crimes did not breach broadcasting code, rules regulator Channel 4’s controversial documentary Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields, which featured graphic footage of alleged war crimes, has been cleared of breaching the broadcasting code.Ofcom said images featured in the documentary, broadcast in June, “whilst brutal and shocking”, did […]

TamilNetAs per order issued on the 13th day of October 2011, by the United States District Judge, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the District Court of District of Columbia, with respect to Civil Action No. 11-00235 (CKK) Dr. Kasippillai Manoharan, et al. v. Percy Mahendra Rajapakse, the Court Summons and the Complaint are published here in full. […]

TamilNetThe Canadian Peace Alliance, Canada’s largest umbrella organisation of 180 groups representing over 1 million Canadians, resolved last week to encourage “its member organizations to stand in solidarity with the Tamil nation in their global struggle for self-determination and freedom.” It called for an “immediate end to the colonialism and genocide of the Tamil nation […]

M.A. Sumanthiran 1. IntroductionOn 7th July 2011 I tabled a report in Parliament detailing the situation in the North and East, highlighting a series of urgent concerns. The following is an update to the previous report and discusses some of the most serious issues that have arisen since or continue to take place in these […]

”The physical and emotional pain that has been handed down through generations in Sri Lanka during the last five decades has mainly been the inevitable outcomes of past policies followed by the successive governments, based on discrimination and social exclusion. The players, particularly parties to the conflict, have continued their unceasing confrontational politics. The current […]

A Dutch court has convicted five Dutch ethnic Tamil men for raising funds for the banned Tamil Tiger rebels.The men got sentences of up to six years for their activities on behalf of rebels who fought for an independent homeland for Tamils in Sri Lanka.Prosecutors said the men extorted millions of euros from the Tamil […]

Matthew Russell LeeUNITED NATIONS, October 20 — When Marzuki Darusman spoke to the media at the UN on Thursday, his biography as read out by the UN did not include his recent work on Sri Lanka. Inner City Press asked him about what the Sri Lankan government has taken to calling the “Darusman report.” Video […]

The implications of the failure to prosecute Duminda SilvaThe editor of the Sunday Leader, in an article entitled ‘The law is an ass’ questions the statement by a government spokesman that Duminda Silva is not a suspect in the killings of Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra and three others. Some members of Bharatha Lakshman’s family also condemned […]

TamilNet,Sri Lanka is sinking deeply inside a torrent of allegations of war crimes against three senior officials, including Sri Lanka’s President, ten days before the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) is to take place in Perth, prompting Premier Julia Gillard to confirm that Australian Federal Police (AFP) is conducting investigations on Sri Lanka officials […]

Press Release: Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative Background: In early 2009 Sri Lanka’s long running armed conflict came to an end. Following this several serious allegations of human rights violations have been made on the warring parties including the government. A recent report by a Panel of Experts appointed by the UN Secretary General found many […]

[JURIST] A group of rights organizations and lawmakers on Monday called for Australia to investigate [press release, PDF] a top ranking official in the Sri Lankan High Commission [official website] in Canberra for war crimes violations allegedly committed by the Sri Lankan Navy during clashes with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) [JURIST news […]

John Dowd, president of the Australian chapter of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), has named the current Sri Lankan high commissioner to Australia, Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe, in a submission containing allegations of war crimes.Admiral Samarasinghe joined the Sri Lankan navy in 1974 and retired in January 2011. John Dowd, in a statement released on […]