Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission distorts figures of missing persons

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 August 2012, 22:48 GMT]
The ‘Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission’, run by the Sri Lankan State in Colombo, has begun to conceal and twist the figures of complaints registered by its regional offices in the North and East. While announcing that a ‘high level’ delegation from Colombo is scheduled to visit Jaffna in the coming days to ‘investigate’ the registered complaints of missing persons since the year 2006, Mr. S. Kanagaraj, an official at the Jaffna office told media Wednesday that only 472 people were reported missing after the year 2006. However, informed human rights activists in Jaffna said that the office had registered 1,500 to 2,000 cases since 2006. There were at least 599 cases registered by the office in the year 2006 alone, they further said.

Between 1998 and 2001, more than 800 persons were reported missing in Jaffna peninsula under the occupying Sri Lanka Army. The SL HRC is silent about these cases.

Recently, there were 800 cases of persons who were missing in Vanni after the end of Vanni war in 2009. These details were also registered at the Jaffna office by the resettling people in Jaffna. The SL-HRC doesn't want to talk about these cases.

Usually, the SL-HRC office archives the complaints registered by the kith and kin of those reported missing. The office also seeks information from the SL military and files the response it receives from Palaali in the same file.

The people of Jaffna, who use to register the details of the missing for the sake of the record, have no faith in the follow-up work done by Colombo's mechanism of SL Human Rights Commission, human rights activists in Jaffna told TamilNet.

The latest twist from the Jaffna office is that there has been ‘no response’ from the families of the missing to a questionnaire it had posted to them in advance.

In the meantime, some of the families of the missing persons have left the island seeking asylum after 2006, the rights activists said.

There are also parents who are afraid of actively engaging in the search for their missing family members. Especially, parents having other young members in their families are cautious of not provoking the Sri Lankan military intelligence.

The SL Human Rights Commission is financially dependent on the genocidal State of Sri Lanka. The SL President, who is also the Commander-in-Chief of the SL armed forces, appoints the commissioners of the outfit.

in 2007 itself, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) criticised the composition of the SL-HRC that the SL president had personally appointed five commissioners to the outfit in violation of article 41B of the Sri Lankan constitution.

Where are our children? Scream of the parents

இதயமுள்ளவர்களிடம் அழுதால் இரக்கத்தில் தாங்களும் அழுதாவது துயரத்தில் பங்கேற்பார்கள்.எங்கிருந்தோ இயக்கும்  நாடகப்பாத்திரங்க்ள அழுகை குறித்துக் கவலைப்படவா போகிறார்கள்? வருத்தத்துடன்
இலக்குவனார் திருவள்ளுவன் / தமிழே விழி! தமிழா விழி! எழுத்தைக் காப்போம்! மொழியைக் காப்போம்! இனத்தைக் காப்போம்! /

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எங்க பிள்ளைங்க இருக்காங்களா? இந்தியக் குழுவிடம் தமிழர்கள் கதறல்

First Published : 21 Apr 2012 11:19:49 AM IST

கொழும்பு, ஏப். 21 :  இலங்கையில்  போர் முடிவுற்ற பிறகு அங்குள்ள நிலைமையை ஆராய சென்றுள்ள நாடாளுமன்றக் குழுவிடம், மெனிக்பார்ம் முகாமில் வாழும் மக்கள், விசாரணை என்று அழைத்துச் செல்லப்பட்ட எங்கள் பிள்ளைகளை எல்லாம் காணோம். அவர்கள் உயிரோடு இருக்கிறாங்களா,  இல்லையான்னே தெரியலை. எங்க பிள்ளைகளை மீட்டுத்தாங்க என்று கதறி இருக்கிறார்கள். மேலும், அங்கு வாழும் பெண்கள், தங்களுக்கு இலங்கை அரசாங்கம் அளிக்கும் புழுத்துப் போன அரிசியைக் கொண்டு வந்து காட்டி இதனை எப்படி சமைத்து சாப்பிடுவோம் என்று கேட்டுள்ளனர். அப்போது அங்கிருந்த இலங்கை அதிகாரிகள், நல்ல உணவுப் பொருட்களைத்தான் தருகிறோம் என்று வாய்க்கூசாமல் நாடாளுமன்றக் குழுவிடம் கூறியுள்ளனர்.

Missing persons' parents stage protest amidst harassment by SL military in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 December 2011, 10:12 GMT]
For the first time in Jaffna, kept under the iron fist of occupying SL military, parents and relatives of the missing persons, braved SL army barriers and harassment by the occupying soldiers and riot police and staged a protest in front of Jaffna Bus stand on Wold Human Rights Day seeking global attention on the plight of those reported missing since the end of Vanni war in 2009. The SL military and police blocked the organisers from Colombo, the Civil Monitoring Commttee of missing persons, at Veampadi in Jaffna, for hours blocking them from reaching the site of the protest. The protestors managed to intuitively stage the rally without the organisers, political observers in Jaffna said. In the meantime, a JVP dissident group member, Lalith Weeraraj, who was on his way to the protest site has been reported missing at Aavarangkaal. The SL Police attacked reporters covering the protest.

Tension prevailed in the city of Jaffna as the SLA personnel were deployed at several checkpoints questioning and harassing people asking the travellers where they were heading. Each and every traveller on Point-Pedro Jaffna Road were stopped and checked at 8 check posts by the SL military reminding the days of 2007.

When people gathered at the site around 10:00 a.m., the Police officers present at the site dispersed the demonstrators saying that they had no permission to protest. Former parliamentarian S. Kajendren of TNPF, came to the protest site and argued with the Police saying that people had the right to stand along the road side and stage a protest on Human Rights Day. As TNA MP Vinyagamoorthy, former MP Sivajilingam and TNA MP Mavai Senathiraja managed to reach the site, the SL police had to end the harassment at the site of the venue.

Around 50 persons who had come from South, representing various parties and the organising committee, were blocked at Nelliyadi and were only allowed to attend the protest at the last minute after they staged a protest at Nelliyadi. The organisers and parties were not allowed to bring in their placards.

Several parents of the persons reported missing since the end of genocidal war on Vanni in 2009, said they had witnessed their kith and kin, now reported missing, reach the Sri Lanka Army controlled territory. There were parents of missing who had been taken away from the barbed-wire detention camps in Vavuniyaa. A number of persons have also been abducted after their release.

One of the main demands of the protesters was to pressurise the Sri Lankan state to publicly release the names of those under their detention.

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