"SELF DETERMINATION IS KEY TO THE WORLD PEACE"
Human Rights Concerns?
[Wednesday, 9 November 2011 09:39] General, Genocide, Human Rights Articles, NewsSri Lanka Human Rights
Sri Lanka’s brutal 26-year civil war between the government forces and separatists from the Tamil minority ended with a government victory in May 2009. During the war, both sides committed gross human rights abuses, including war crimes, for which no one has been held accountable. Enforced disappearances and torture have continued to be reported since the war’s end. Thousands remain detained without charge or trial. Independent journalists and human rights defenders have been harassed and attacked. Draconian security laws inconsistent with international standards remain in place.
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Sri Lanka Human Rights
Human Rights Concerns
Sri Lanka’s brutal 26-year civil war between the government forces and separatists from the Tamil minority ended with a government victory in May 2009. During the war, both sides committed gross human rights abuses, including war crimes, for which no one has been held accountable. Enforced disappearances and torture have continued to be reported since the war’s end. Thousands remain detained without charge or trial. Independent journalists and human rights defenders have been harassed and attacked. Draconian security laws inconsistent with international standards remain in place.
During 1983 – 2009, Sri Lanka was wracked by a civil war between the security forces (who are mostly from the majority Sinhalese community) and the armed Tamil opposition group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who were seeking an independent state for the Tamil minority in the north and east of the island. While human rights abuses were committed by both sides during the long decades of conflict, the final years of the war saw a heightened intensity of fighting, accompanied by soaring human rights abuses: hundreds of enforced disappearances, unlawful killings of aid workers, arbitrary arrests, torture and the use of child soldiers. Some of these abuses may constitute war crimes. An independent international investigation into these reported abuses is needed in order to achieve truth and justice for the victims and their families.
At the end of the war, about 11,000 displaced people suspected of links to the LTTE were arbitrarily arrested and detained without charge or trial. While many of the detainees have since been released, at least 4,000 remain in detention. These detainees should be charged with legitimate criminal offences, tried and prosecuted in accordance with the law, or else released.
In recent years, cases of torture and enforced disappearances have continued to be reported, with no one being held responsible. Outside the war zone, journalists and other media workers have been attacked. At least 14 media workers have been the victims of unlawful killings since the beginning of 2006; one has allegedly disappeared in the custody of the security forces, while others have been tortured and arbitrarily detained. Emergency regulations issued by the Sri Lankan President have been used to silence critical media and generally violate freedom of expression in Sri Lanka, including through detention without charge or trial for periods lasting up to 18 months.
Not Enough Tears
Rajani Thiranagama was a doctor, a successful scientist, and a committed teacher at Jaffna University. She also served as a Tamil activist so dedicated to exposing the human rights abuses being perpetrated on her people that she paid for it with her life. In 1989 she was shot dead as she cycled home from work, and her family believes it was a gun held by a Tamil Tiger that killed her. Listen to the radio program,
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Read Report: Silencing dissent: Media workers under attack in Sri Lanka
Read Report: Human Rights Council must call for an independent international investigation into allegations of war crimes in Sri Lanka
Read Report: Unlock the Camps in Sri Lanka: Safety and dignity for the displaced now – a briefing paper
Read Report: Twenty Years of Make Believe: Sri Lanka’s Commisions of Inquiry
Connect: AIUSA South Asia Action Network on Facebook
Connect: Sri Lanka Human Rights updates on Twitter
Download: Letter from Human Rights Organizations to Hillary Clinton
Download: Killing Fields documentary screening guide
Read Report: Sri Lanka: Briefing to the UN Committee against Torture, October 2011
Sri Lanka Human Rights Updates
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Global Peace Support Group UK Ltd is a registered organisation based in London. The organisation dedicated to be involved in humanitarian and other related issues. We also work along with other similar organisations to promote peace and harmony among various societies..
GLOBAL PEACE SUPPORT GROUP - UK - TIRELESSLY WORK ON THE CONCEPT OF:
"SELF DETERMINATION IS KEY TO THE WORLD PEACE"
MOURNS ON THE CONTINUED TRAGEDY OF THE PEOPLE OF North & East of Tamil EELAM WITH THE HOPE OF ALL OF OUR ENDEAVOURS WOULD BRING AN END TO THOSE SUFFERING DURING THE YEAR AHEAD.
The International community has a duty towards the long suffering Sri Lankan Tamil population to restore their rights of SELF DETERMINATION.
Global Peace Support Group - believes that this is the ONLY way for a permanent PEACE in Sri Lanka.
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