New York, October 30, 2009—Chinese police have reportedly arrested two Uighur journalists who published online about Uighur issues in Xinjiang, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Chinese authorities blamed local and international Uighur Web sites for fueling July’s ethnic violence, according to international news reports.
Security officials arrested Web site manager Hailaite Niyazi in his home in the regional capital, Urumqi, on October 1, according to The Associated Press and Radio France Internationale today.Authorities informed his family on October 4 that he had been detained for endangering national security, RFI reported. Niyazi, who has worked for state newspapers Xinjiang Legal News and Xinjiang Economic Daily, also managed and edited the Web site Uighurbiz until June this year, according to AP.
A second Uighur Web site manager, Dilixiati Paerhati, has been missing since August 7, when unidentified men detained him in his apartment Urumqi, AP report said. Amnesty International publicized the case last week when Paerhati’s brother Dilimulati, a U.K.-based student, appealed for his release. Paerhati’s popular Web site, Diyarim,has been inaccessible since early July, when violent rioting sparked by ethnic tensions between indigenous Uighurs and Han Chinese who have settled in the area prompted a widespread crackdown on the Internet in Xinjiang. The autonomous region remains largely offline, according to international news reports.
“We are concerned that Hailaite Niyazi and Dilixiati Paerhati, who covered the volatile Xinjiang region, have been detained,” said Bob Dietz, CPJ Asia program coordinator. Urumqi authorities must clarify their status immediately. Managing a Web site is not a crime.”
Paerhati was detained and interrogated about the riots on July 24 but released without charge after eight days. No formal notification of his arrest followed his disappearance on August 7 and his whereabouts are unknown, according to Amnesty. “He only edits a Web site, he hasn’t done anything wrong,” his brother told the group.
Uighurbiz founder Ilham Tohti was questioned about the contents of the site and detained for more than six weeks before being released in August, according to international news reports. Tohti told AP he did not publicize Niyazi’s arrest earlier for fear of damaging his case. Niyazi’s wife believes Niyazi gave interviews to foreign media outlets about the situation in July that may have led to the charge against him, Tohti told AP.
“In China, sometimes even if you are just defending human rights, if you say something a little bit extreme, you’ll be in trouble,” Niyazi told AP in July.
New York, October 28, 2009—The Committee to Protect Journalists is greatly concerned by ongoing threats to Sri Lanka’s journalists and media organizations. Anonymous letters with death threats, at left, recently sent to Sunday Leader Editor-in-Chief Frederica Jansz and News Editor Munza Mushtaq echo those that ended in the death of the paper’s founder, Lasantha Wickramatunga, in January.
“Our concern is that these most recent threats, like so many others, and the deaths of 11 journalists since President Mahinda Rajapaksa came to power in 2006, will remain unexplained and those behind them will remain unprosecuted,” said Bob Dietz, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “The air of impunity surrounding violence against the media is having a chilling effect on journalists.”
The written threats are “almost identical to what Lasantha got three weeks before he was murdered,” Jansz told CPJ in an e-mail message. No one has been charged or prosecuted in Wickramatunga’s death. The editor was killed in his car on his way to work on a busy street in a suburb of Colombo. According to his brother Lal Wickramatunga, chairman of the paper’s parent company, Leader Publications, the editor had been receiving anonymous death threats for months.
According to Jansz, the two letters she and Mushtaq received on October 22 are identical—written in red ink, postmarked October 21. Both letters threatened: “If you write anymore, we will kill you and slice you into pieces,” Jansz said. The Sunday Leader has a long history of being critical of the government, but Jansz said she thinks the latest threat stems from a controversy surrounding an interview she gave to Al-Jazeera about footage aired by Britain’s Channel 4 News that apparently showed a man in a Sri Lankan military uniform executing Tamil prisoners, some unclothed and with their hands tied behind their backs. The government denied the video’s validity, and claimed Jansz’s comments supported claims of the video’s accuracy.
While two boat loads of Tamil refugees fleeing Sri Lanka push their case to be admitted into Australia, two reports on Sri Lankan atrocities against Tamils have been released without a word from the Australian media or government.
Reports from the United States state department and the European Commission (EC) revealed the extent of the brutal crimes of the Sri Lankan state.
Alex, a spokesperson for the 254 Tamils onboard a refugee boat currently located in Merak port off West Java, told Green Left Weekly by phone: “The Australian and Indonesian governments are trying to hide what has happened to us Tamils.”
The Tamils are an oppressed nationality mainly from in the north and east of Sri Lanka, subjected to systematic discrimination and violent repression. A nearly three decade-long civil war, in which the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam fought for an independent Tamil state, was ended with a brutal Sri Lankan offensive that finally defeated the LTTE in May.
Tamil civilians bore the brunt of the Sri Lankan Army’s campaign — including one night in May when Tamil sources estimated 20,000 civilians were butchered in SLA bombings.
Alex described the effect of the war on the Tamils fleeing Sri Lanka: “Many people have been wounded, had body parts amputated, been kidnapped and been imprisoned over long periods.
“We have run away from a war against our people, a genocidal war by the Sri Lankan state”, he said.
“Just the fact that you are Tamil means you will face genocide sooner or later. They are attempting an entire annihilation of Tamils in Sri Lanka.”
Since the formal end of the war in May, hundreds of thousands of Tamil people have been imprisoned in internment camps, in which torture, rape and disappearances are widely reported.
An Indonesian navy patrol boat apprehended Alex’s boat on October 11 after an Australian tip-off.
The boat has been moored at Merak for more than two weeks. On October 30, the Tamils released a statement saying the International Organisation of Migration was pressuring them to leave the boat. Alex said they had cut off the fresh water supply.
It has sparked a media and politician-driven frenzy about the “threat” from refugee boats — including scaremongering that LTTE “terrorists” may be among the fleeing Tamils.
What is missing is any explanation about the horrors the Tamils are fleeing or the context for the LTTE armed struggle.
After independence from Britain in 1948, Sri Lanka declared itself a ethnically exclusive state based on the Sinhalese ethnic majority. Buddhism, the main religion of the Sinhalese, declared the state religion.
For decades, the Tamils led peaceful campaigns for equality. However, the armed campaign of the LTTE won wide support among Tamils after the 1983 “Black July” pogroms, which resulted in 3000 Tamils killed by Sinhalese mobs.
Sri Lanka’s military campaign against the LTTE was supported by Western powers such as the US and Britain. Australia also supports the Sri Lankan state. Australia donates $30 million a year to Sri Lanka in aid to promote “reconciliation and reconstruction”.
After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Sri Lanka succeeded in integrating its campaign against the LTTE into the global “war on terror”.
However, the LTTE armed campaign was limited to the struggle for an independent state in Sri Lanka’s east and north. The LTTE was purely a national liberation group, whose purpose did not extend beyond that goal.
There is no evidence any of the Tamil refugees on either boat were members of the LTTE. But the idea that a former member of the LTTE fleeing Sri Lanka would pose a “terrorist threat” to Australia ignores the nature and purpose of the organisation.
Also, in labelling the LTTE “terrorist”, Western powers ignored the constant campaign of terror directed at Tamil civilians by the Sri Lankan government.
The Sri Lankan government continues to claim its forces were responsible for no civilian deaths in the civil war — even in the face of overwhelming evidence. The United Nations said during the last five months of the SLA campaign, at least 7000 Tamils were killed.
The London Times put the figure at 20,000.
The European Commission (EC) report into Sri Lankan atrocities, released on October 19, focused on allegations of breached of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention Against Torture and the Convention on the Rights of the Child carried out by the Sri Lankan government.
It said in Sri Lanka there exists “a widespread climate of impunity”. It said the holding of hundreds of Tamil civilians in barbed wire-enclosed camps amounts “to mass internment” where rape and abductions are common.
The EC report said: “The majority of deaths as a result of torture at the hands of the police are not caused by ‘rogue’ police officers but by ordinary officers taking part in an established routine.”
Since 2006, Sri Lanka has had the highest disappearance rate in the world. In November 2008, the Sri Lankan Chairman of the Presidential Commission on Disappearances said 886 people had disappeared in the last year.
The Sri Lankan government created nine separate bodies to investigate these cases. However, the report said these failed to “carry out effective investigations” or “bring an end to disappearances”.
Torture techniques used by the army included burning with soldering irons and hanging detainees by their thumbs. Pro-government Tamil groups are used to abduct alleged LTTE members from internment camps, including children.
The ongoing state of emergency enacted in 2005 allows for detainees to be held for one year in “preventative detention” without charge. Sri Lanka’s Prevention of Terrorism Act allows for the detention without trial of alleged LTTE fighters for up to two years.
The report said the “anti-terror” laws have been used to target those critical of the government, including journalists, publishers and political opponents.
Summary execution is also common. The report said dissidents have been killed in police detention.
In March 2008, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said: “Extra-judicial killings and disappearances are part of a terrible pattern of abuse in Sri Lanka which must be stopped.”
The EC report said those who have been freed from the camps have not had access to equal rights expected under international law. In fact, international funding to the Sri Lankan state has been used to persecute the Tamils.
When released from internment camps, Tamils are given special identification cards. The report said this is used to “restrict their mobility and access to education”. The card states their residential area and defines where they can receive services like education.
The EC report said that in some cases, “the effect of these designations was to bar the original inhabitants largely ethnic Tamils, from returning to their homes”.
Alex told GLW the Sri Lankan government’s claims about resettlement of displaced Tamils were overblown. He said many of the people moving back into the north and east of the country were actually Sinhalese. It is part of a government plan to change the ethnic makeup of these areas.
For Tamils, fleeing to Australia is clearly a last resort. It is a decision forced on them by the actions of the Sri Lanka’s ethnically supremacist military state and their collaborators in the West — including Australia.
The current scaremongering by Australian politicians and the mainstream media seeks to further cover up what should be obvious — thet Tamils need and deserve our support.
After more than 120 days of mass resistance by the poor majority against a coup regime that overthrew elected President Manuel Zelaya, the regime has finally signed an agreement for Zelaya’s reinstatement.
On October 30, Zelaya and the coup regime signed an agreement opening the way for the elected president to take office once more. However, the key demand of the mass resistance for a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution is excluded by the deal until Zelaya leaves office in late January.
The National Resistance Front against the Coup (FNRG) is pledging to continue its campaign of protests around this demand and it is unclear whether it will continue with a planned boycott of the November 29 elections.
Only one month away, preparations and campaigning for these presidential and Congressional elections have occurred in the context of brutal repression and the silencing of anti-coup media. This makes a free and fair vote almost certainly impossible.
Although the victory is only partial and involves significant compromises, it is an example of people’s power forcing its will on one of the most extreme right-wing oligarchies in the region. Mass resistance has stopped plans to consolidate a savage dictatorship that gives free reign to the rich.
The agreement still needs to be ratified by the Congress. Zelaya and his supporters appear confident this will happen, although nothing can be guaranteed.
Already, aides to coup regime leader Roberto Micheletti have said Congress may not vote until after the November 19 poll and cast doubt on whether Congress would vote for Zelaya’s return.
The regime can be expected to drag its feet on implementing the agreement for as long as possible — and continue using repression against Zelaya supporters.
The ongoing street protests, road blockades, occupations and strikes led by the FNRG since the military kidnapped and exiled Zelaya on June 28 have brought the country, and its fragile economy, to a standstill.
The poor view Zelaya as “their” president for introducing some pro-people reforms and trying to organise a democratic process to create a new constitution. The Honduran oligarchy and US corporate interests hate Zelaya for the same reason.
Zelaya had also sided with the anti-imperialist alliance led by the revolutionary governments of Venezuela and Cuba, joining the solidarity-based Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) trading bloc.
The inability of the coup regime to crush the resistance and stabilise the country appears to have led to US pressure on the regime to accept a negotiated solution as the only way out of the crisis.
The mass resistance was able to prevent the regime consolidating, but its inability to overthrow the dictatorship was in no small part due to the refusal of the US government to cut all aid and military ties. The regime was otherwise totally isolated internationally.
The agreement signed reflects the relationship of forces. It represents significant compromises by both sides, neither of which was able to decisively defeat the other.
By signing the agreement, the regime is forced to acknowledge Zelaya’s removal was not constitutionally valid, as it claimed, but a coup. It held off on agreeing to Zelaya’s return until the very last minute.
The agreement also commits Zelaya to form a government of “national reconciliation” involving the coup plotters. It remains unclear what the make-up of such a government will be, and how much power will rest with Zelaya.
The agreement also places a referendum on a constituent assembly off the table until Zelaya leaves office.
The agreement also leaves open the question of bringing those responsible for crimes during the coup to justice.
Thousands of people have been illegally detained by the coup regime, and dozens have been disappeared or killed. The FNRG said death squads linked to the regime are targeting coup opponents.
The agreement specifically does not grant amnesty for crimes committed. However, it only promises to establish a “truth commission”.
Now that an agreement has been reached, the Honduran elite are hoping to ease the nation’s international isolation by having the November 29 poll recognised as legitimate. Given the conditions under which it has been prepared, the poll is likely to be a victory for right-wing forces.
However, regardless of the poll outcome, Honduras is a different country from that before the coup. A powerful mass movement with deep roots among the oppressed has been built.
This movement has given no indication it intends to stop.
On October 30, the FNRG released a statement declaring: “We celebrate the upcoming restoration of President Manuel Zelaya Rosales as a popular victory over the narrow interests of the coup oligarchy.
“This victory has been obtained through four months of struggle and sacrifice by the people who, in spite of the savage repression unleashed by the repressive forces of the state in the hands of the dominant class, have been able to resist and grow in their levels of consciousness and organisation and turn themselves into an irrepressible social force.”
It said the agreement represents “the explicit acceptance that in Honduras there was a coup d’etat that should be dismantled … to guarantee a democratic framework in which the people can exercise their right to transform society”.
Pledging to continue the push for a constituent assembly, it said: “We will continue struggling in the streets, until we achieve the re-founding of our society to convert it into one that is just, egalitarian and truly democratic.”
Justice and Freedom for Ceylon Tamils is a human rights action group based in Melbourne. It was formed in 2007. A spokesperson for the group, Nagamuthu Wickiramasingham, told Green Left Weekly that Tamil refugees had good reason to flee the brutal Sri Lankan regime by boat.
“There is no way of coming to Australia by the ‘front door’ from Colombo or from other areas of Sri Lanka”, Wickiramasingham said. “There are only two openings for Sri Lankans to come to Australia and that is family reunion and skilled migration. Skilled migration is only for qualified people.
“But Tamil people living in the north and east, have very little chance to apply for this because they can’t go to [the capital], Colombo. The roads are closed and it is very difficult to access Colombo by any transport.
“If young Tamils do come to Colombo from the north and east without any employment or any reason for coming, they are arrested and interrogated and sometimes put into detention. This is the reason why people leave by boat.”
Wickiramasingham said Australia used to have a scheme called the 215 special assistance visa, a special humanitarian policy designed for Sri Lankan Tamils affected by war.
Under the program, about 1000 Sri Lankan Tamils were granted visas to Australia each year. But the Howard government abolished the program in 2000. Since then, there has been no special assistance category for Tamils to flee to Australia to escape persecution.
“Now we don’t have the program, people want to save their lives so they leave their country and go to neighbouring countries and from the neighbouring countries they come here”, said Wickiramasingham.
The Sri Lankan government has detained 300,000 Tamils in concentration camps since the civil war between the government and the Tamil Tigers ended in May. Government officials said civilians would be released and resettled after 90 days, but this still hasn’t happened.
In August, Amnesty International said the camps “are run by the military and the camp residents are prevented from leaving them … Displaced people have even been prevented from talking to aid workers. With no independent monitors able to freely visit the camps, many people are unprotected and at risk from enforced disappearances, abductions, arbitrary arrest and sexual violence.”
The Tamil community suspects that the Sri Lankan government wants to migrate people from the Sinhalese ethnic majority from Sri Lanka’s south to colonise the Tamil homelands in the north and east.
The imprisonment of 300,000 Tamils prevents their return to their homes or villages.
Wickiramasingham said he had learned from a Tamil parliamentarian in Sri Lanka that the government is already colonising the eastern Tamil province of Trincomalee with Sinhalese migrants.
He said conditions for the Tamil refugees in Indonesia were also atrocious. Even if they are recognised as asylum seekers, like other refugees they will be kept in Indonesia in crowded conditions for years.
“Detention centres in Indonesia are not easy,” he said. “People are [kept] in a small room with 20-25 people and no hygienic or health facilities. Things like toilets, bathrooms, and medical facilities are very poor. And not only that, the guards [have been known to] bash the refugees and steal their goods.”
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees recognises that there are nearly 10,000 asylum seekers in Malaysia, including many Sri Lankan Tamils. Many Tamil refugees are also in Cambodia, but languish in overcrowded conditions.
India is just one hour across the strait from northern Sri Lanka, but Wickiramasingham said the Indian and Sri Lankan navies guard the coastal area. Refugee boats that try to reach India have been shot at and sunk by the Indian and Sri Lankan vessels.
He said this makes it very risky for asylum seekers to go to India, although he also said the Indian state government of Tamil Nadu tends to look after Tamils better than other countries if they make it across safely.
Wickiramasingham said that the people smugglers would only stop if Australia takes more refugees from countries like Indonesia.
“The Australian government should open some legal avenues for refugees to come here”, he said. “Some of the European countries have humanitarian programs. But in Sri Lanka and southeast Asia, there is no humanitarian program where they can come to Australia.
“If Tamil refugees arrive in Malaysia or Singapore or Indonesia, and the UN refugee agency recognises them as refugees and they apply for refugee status in Australia, their applications are turned down because Australia has a very low intake of refugees.”
He said “the only way is to open a special visa or a special humanitarian program for people who have been effected by the war in the north and east of Sri Lanka.
“The problem is that the government is taking a bigger proportion of skilled migrants than other categories. It could reduce the skilled migration and increase the humanitarian program and refugee intake.
“An intake of 11,500 refugees per year is not enough. The refugee intake must be increased by at least 3000-4000. That’s the only way you stop the people smugglers and the boat people.
“The government could open a special humanitarian program and take the refugees from Christmas Island. It’s only about 1000 people.
“Tamils are suffering in the war-torn areas of Sri Lanka. They’ve lost their houses. They don’t have anything other than what they are wearing. They are not economic refugees. They fled from the war zone area to save their lives. Pregnant women wouldn’t come on a boat unless they are fleeing for their lives.”
He said conditions for the 255 Tamil refugees kept in the Indonesia port of Merak for the past two weeks is becoming desperate. “The authorities are restricting water supplies to the refugees”, he told GLW. “With 30 children having eye infections, this is inhumane … there isn’t enough water to wash out the infection.”
When asked about Coalition MP Wilson Tuckey’s allegation that there are terrorists on the refugee boats, Wickiramasingham explained that Tamil people have suffered racial discrimination for the past 50 years, which had culminated in a government-sponsored genocide.
“The young people were fighting for their freedom. They were not terrorists. They will die in Sri Lanka. They don’t want to come out of Sri Lanka because they are fighting until death for freedom. They don’t fear for their lives.
“They are not the people coming on boats to seek refuge in other countries. The people coming on the boats are genuine refugees.
“The main point is that we need a special humanitarian program to be open so that Tamils who are still in Sri Lanka can come legally to Australia. Also, people who are coming by boat are genuine refugees and must receive an amnesty and access to a humanitarian program”, he said.
VANCOUVER — The government is raising security questions during detention hearings for a number of the 76 Tamil migrants who arrived off the West Coast on a decrepit little freighter earlier this month.
The men, at least three of whom crewed the Ocean Lady across the Pacific from Sri Lanka until it was intercepted in Canadian waters on Oct. 17, are undergoing their second and third mandatory detention hearings before the Immigration and Refugee Board.
Details of the hearings are under a publication ban because the men are being treated as potential refugee claimants, though not all have made formal claims.
While the board approved detention initially based on questions about their identities, counsel for the Canadian Border Services Agency has begun raising public security as grounds for further detention.
As of Friday, hearings of at least a dozen claimants were adjourned because border services’ lawyers “introduced a new ground for detention and disclosed supporting documents that needed to be reviewed by the parties in order to prepare for the hearing,” said board spokeswoman Melissa Anderson.
A rarely-used section of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act allows the immigration minister to request detention in order to “inquire into a reasonable suspicion that they are inadmissible on grounds of security or for violating human or international rights.”
There are concerns the migrants may include those who may have links to the Tamil Tigers, the military arm of the Tamil separatist movement that’s been at war with the Sri Lankan government for decades.
The Tigers are banned in Canada as a terrorist organization because, among other things, they used suicide bombings to attack targets in the Sinhalese-dominated parts of the country.
The Sri Lankan army crushed the rebellion last May but officials of the Canadian Tamil Congress have said the young men chose the risky ocean journey because Tamils are still persecuted and it’s nearly impossible for them to come to Canada legally.
By late Friday, the board had wrapped up 15 more mandatory seven-day detention reviews — for a total of 63 — ordering continued detention in all cases.
Most remain in custody because identity documents have not been verified. The migrants get another mandatory review within 30 days.
The hearings are taking place at the board’s downtown Vancouver offices, though often their lawyers are taking part via telephone link from Toronto.
Those whose families haven’t hired lawyers are being represented by duty counsel from the B.C. Legal Services Society.
Hearings have gone well into the evening as the men face seven-day and 30-day detention reviews.
Dressed in red prison T-shirts and pants, often with long underwear underneath, the men shuffle to their hearings in leg shackles and handcuffs.
The board ordered one migrant released last Friday under restrictions.
Advocacy groups speaking on behalf of 76 Sri Lankan refugee claimants are warning against “unsubstantiated” claims surrounding the detained men’s backgrounds and alleged involvement with terrorist organizations.
The men, seized Oct. 17 from a dilapidated ocean freighter off B.C.’s coast, remain at the Fraser Regional Correctional Centre in Maple Ridge.
The advocacy groups — including the Canadian Tamil Congress and the watchdog group No One Is Illegal — are calling for the immediate release of the men, believed to be ethnic Tamils.
“They have been detained now for approximately one week and that is incredibly concerning, given the fact they are applying for refugee status and continue to be criminalized under our immigration and detention systems,” Harsha Walia of No One Is Illegal said Friday.
Under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Canada Border Services Agency is required to bring a person under detention before the immigration review board within 48 hours. If their detention continues, they are required to reappear before the board within seven days. Continued reviews then proceed on 30-day intervals for those who remain detained.
One of the men, 26-year-old Kartheepan Manickavasagar, has been identified in one news report as a member of the Tamil Tigers — a rebel group recognized as a terrorist organization by Ottawa.
Walia, however, cautioned that such allegations remain unfounded. To date, the only source of such information has come from the Sri Lankan government, she said.
Until May, Sri Lanka was locked in a 25-year-old civil war between government forces and Tamil Tiger guerrillas. The rebels lost. An estimated 280,000 Sri Lankans remain displaced as a result of the conflict.
Sue Nathan of the Canadian Tamil Congress said Friday she fears for the safety of the asylum seekers should their refugee applications be declined and they are forced to return home.
“If these men are sent back, they will definitely, definitely face persecution,” Nathan said. “They will disappear. They will face death.”
As of Friday, all claimants had appeared before the review board. One was released Wednesday.
Amnesty International and the Canadian Council for Refugees are concerned about media reports that the Canadian government authorities have been collaborating with the Sri Lankan authorities in establishing the identity of the 76 individuals who recently arrived by boat in Canada. Such collaboration would violate the internationally-recognized principle of confidentiality for refugee claimaints and, in cases where the government is the persectuor from which refugees have fled, can increase the risk of danger to the individuals seeking protection from another state.
_________________
The Honourable Jason Kenney, P.C., M.P.
Minister for Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism
Citizenship and Immigration Canada
Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 1L1
The Honourable Peter Van Loan, P.C., M.P.
Minister of Public Safety Canada
Public Safety Canada
269 Laurier Avenue West
Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0P8
Dear Ministers,
We are writing to express our grave concern at media reports that Canadian government authorities have been collaborating with Sri Lankan authorities in establishing the identity of the 76 individuals who recently arrived by boat on the West Coast. Given that these persons appear to be claiming Canada’s protection as refugees, such collaboration with the government of the country from which they fled is completely inappropriate.
As you know, personal information about refugee claimants must be kept confidential. This principle is recognized internationally, including in numerous Conclusions of the UNHCR Executive Committee, as well as in Canada’s own legislation, which provides for refugee hearings before the Immigration and Refugee Board to be held in private. This is for the protection both of the persons who are making a claim and of others such as family members or colleagues who might be put at risk if claimant information is disclosed.
It is particularly dangerous for information to be shared with government authorities from the country that the claimants fled. In many cases the government is the persecutor.
It is well documented that many serious human rights abuses have been committed by the Sri Lankan government. Numerous Sri Lankans have been recognized as refugees after making a claim in Canada (nearly 1,000 in 2008 alone). Sharing information with the Sri Lankan government about claimants may put them or their family members at risk. Information obtained from the Sri Lankan government about claimants in Canada may be unreliable, given that government’s implication in human rights abuses.
We were extremely disturbed to read in the National Post today the name of one of the passengers on board alleged to be “wanted in Sri Lanka for terrorism”. The newspaper attributed its information to “two sources familiar with the investigation”. We request that you make internal investigations to ascertain whether this dangerous leak came from a government source, and ensure no further personal information on any of the passengers is released to the media.
We ask you to take vigorous measures to ensure that all relevant government agencies have in place policies prohibiting inappropriate communications with foreign governments about refugee claimants, and that these policies are respected.
Yours sincerely,
Elizabeth McWeeny
President, Canadian Council for Refugees
Alex Neve
Secretary General, Amnesty International Canada
********************************
For further information, please contact:
Beth Berton-Hunter, Media Relations
416-363-9933, ext. 332
The Sri Lankan Government has been in the midst of many human rights problems ever since independence in 1948. More so than ever the country has now become an international concern in which one of the reasons for shutting up journalists who dare to speak against the ruling Government. Sri Lanka which is known as the ‘tear drop island’ particularly due to the shape is one of the worst countries for journalists.
According to Bob Dietz, Program Coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), there has been more than ten premeditated murders on journalists who have written against the Government. No arrests have been made for these murders. Many other journalists have been severely beaten, injured and jailed. Most of the journalists are forced to flee the country and are now living in exile.
Journalists say independent reporting has become even more difficult since the end in May of Sri Lanka’s 25-year conflict between the government dominated by the Sinhalese majority and the Tamil Tigers.
Friday October 23, 2009 – Today the Canadian Human Rights Voice (CHRV) was informed of the pending release of the first of the 76 detainees.
The released individual was a minor who was on board the ‘Ocean Lady’. He was ordered released by the presiding IRB Member who stated “my conclusion is that release, subject to terms and conditions, is the appropriate course of action.”
CHRV is working with Vancouver law firm Kang and Company and the family to quickly meet the conditions of release.
“We are extremely pleased.” said Babu Nagalingam, President of CHRV. “The process is working and we look forward to several other people being released in the next week.”
