On behalf of hundreds of thousands of people still suffering in appalling conditions, people we can help, we at the Sri Lanka Peace & Justice Campaign would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to everyone worldwide who has participated in our online petition. People from over 100 nations have already signed. We aim to send the United Nations a new strong petition to reflect the current developments and keep up the pressure on the GoSL! Please take a moment to sign the new petition and forward this email to your friends and colleagues.

It doesn’t matter if you or they have signed something already – the key now is to show the UN that people are still watching. We can succeed, but only with your help.

Signing the Sri Lanka Peace petition it will take just a few seconds of your time at:

http://www.srilankacampaign.org/takeaction.htm

What’s it all about:

The concern worldwide about the events in Sri Lanka prompted campaigns like this and other human rights and pro-democracy campaigners to help persuade the EU to say it will not continue its specially privileged treatment of Sri Lankan imports, and the US State Department to release a report on likely war crimes. And now leading figures from the world of international politics, including the Elders – a group set up by Nelson Mandela – are also speaking out.

This combined pressure has caused the Government of Sri Lanka to speed up the release of the 280,000 internees. But up to 100,000 of those who have been "released" are now confined in new camps, often in conditions of appalling overcrowding, and without full access by UN agencies, international NGOs and independent media. The Asian Centre for Human Rights view that, the recent move giving people limited time passes out of the camps, but under constant monitoring and presentation to authorities, cannot be termed as freedom of movement.

Now is the time to increase our voice and pressure. People from over 100 nations have already signed but we need more people and from more countries.

You can find out more about the terrible situation at www.srilankacampaign.org. It will take just a few seconds of your time to sign the petition: www.srilankacampaign.org/takeaction.htm

We can make a difference to 1000s of innocent people.

Thank you and best wishes,

Edward Mortimer & the other members of the Advisory Council,

Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace & Justice

PS If you are on Facebook, Bebo, MySpace or any other social network please put a post up giving others the link to the petition. Also if you run a website or blog please encourage others to support this urgent campaign.

PPS Please also take another minute to complete a survey about the Campaign to help us be more effective – see www.srilankacampaign.org/survey.htm