ATC refutes statement made by Minister Mano Ganesan that it is safe for Tamils to return to Srilanka

Mr Ganesan wants the asylum seekers in Australia to return to Sri Lanka. He claims that it is safe for them to return, “If anyone has broken any law, they may be questioned about it," he tells SBS Tamil. "But, they will not be taken to torture camps.”  

However, not all Tamils in Australia subscribe to that view.  

Dr Sam Pari, spokesperson of the Australian Tamil Congress says, “There is evidence that torture and arrests continue in Sri Lanka, even after the new government has taken office, with the International Truth and Justice Project alone documenting at least 36 cases of Tamils being tortured."

The International Truth and Justice Project, named by Dr Pari, is just one of many rights groups who allege the abuses are still continuing despite the war ending, officially, in 2009.

There remains no independently verifiable documentation of this though, as  there has been no international inquiry into war crimes and human rights abuses committed during or since the civil war by either the government or the rebel Tamil Tigers. This is despite repeated calls for an inquiry from no less than the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Dr Sam Pari of the Australian Tamil Congress says that "Sinhalese attorney and human rights activist, Lakshan Dias, has fled Sri Lanka this month because of threat to his life by the Justice Minister."

"Bold statements such as this by Minister Mano Ganesan makes one question his credibility.”

While activist Lakshan Dias's current whereabouts could not be confirmed, various rights groups and bloggers report that the prominent lawyer has left the country following speaking out on alleged human rights abuses against the Christian community. The American-headed NGO Human Rights Watch reports that on June 17, 2017, Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe threatened to “take necessary steps to remove Mr. Lakshan Dias from the legal profession” after the outspoken lawyer alleged attacks on Christians at 160 churches across the country.  

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ATC statement on recent issues in the NPC

The Australian Tamil Congress (ATC) wishes to express its disappointment at the events unfolding within the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) surrounding the corruption investigation of Northern Provincial Council (NPC) ministers, and the attempts by certain factions in TNA with the support of the Opposition, to impeach NPC Chief Minister, Justice Wigneswaran. 

Collective memorialisation is a fundamental right

29 May 2017

The Australian Tamil Congress (ATC) is deeply disturbed and strongly condemns the ongoing acts of surveillance, intimidation and harassment by the Sri Lankan state of family members and civil society leaders found engaging in commemoration activities of loved ones who perished eight years ago.  

This month Tamils world over marked the 8^th year since over a hundred thousand Tamils were killed due to the Sri Lankan government's military onslaught in the island's north - a campaign riddled with allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity. 

On 17 May, ruling that it threatened “unity" and "national security" a local court issued a two week ban on memorialisation activities near a commemoration monument in Mullivaikkal East that had been erected earlier. Over the past week several reports have risen of acts of intimidation and harassment by Sri Lankan police and military of those involved in memorialisation events. The most prominent has been the repeated summoning for questioning by the police of Fr. Elil, a Tamil priest involved in such remembrance events. He along with a young Tamil man who assisted in creating memorial stones have been interrogated and asked to sign statements in Sinhala, a language not native to them.

Collective remembrance is a community’s fundamental right and peaceful gatherings help heal a grieving community. Acts of intimidation and obstruction of such fundamental rights goes against ‘good governance’ and ‘reconciliation’. 

The ATC is humbled to hear, however, that amidst such threats by the state, Tamils in the North and East of the island of Sri Lanka continued to publicly commemorate the ‘Mullivaikkal Remembrance Day’ on 18 May with Tamils around the world, including Australia, joining them.

Meanwhile, ATC stands in support with the families of the disappeared holding a peaceful protest in Kilinochchi. This protest demanding answers from the Sri Lankan government on the whereabouts of disappeared family members has now reached its 100th day.

For further details: 

Adayaalam Centre for Policy Research

Amnesty International

The International Truth and Justice Project 

Sports journalist Trevor Grant dies, aged 65 -The Age-Greg Baum

Trevor Grant, who died on Sunday, was brave in everything he did.

As a sports journalist for 40 years, he took the mission of speaking truth to power more to heart than any of his kind. At media briefings, he was invariably front and centre, asking the hard questions, and not in the least intimidated by any of the hard men he was confronting. Some heads are still shaking now. His writing had the same direct quality, but was also elegant and beautifully crafted, a rare combination. The byline alone told you the story would be worth reading.

After retiring early from journalism, Grant – Shorty, or Shortarse to all – took his zeal and compassion in a new direction, as an activist for the disenfranchised and downtrodden. He worked on behalf of refugees, especially from Sri Lanka, and wrote a book on atrocities in their homeland, Sri Lanka's Secrets – How the Rajapaksa regime gets away with Murder. Geoffrey Robertson wrote the foreword. In 2013, the former cricket writer led a movement to boycott the Sri Lankan cricket team in Australia.

Grant tackled other improprieties; for instance, poker machines in the AFL. Periodically, he turned up in the letters pages of the papers he once graced as a journalist. On air, in print or in person, always one quality shone through, that authorities were not going to get away with it.

His last challenge was cancer. In 2015, aged just 63, he was diagnosed with mesothelioma, the asbestos cancer, almost certainly from decades of working in two newspaper offices. While undergoing sometimes gruelling treatment, he pursued the media companies for damages and wrote and spoke about his plight, not in self-pity, but so that others might understand and be emboldened. The injustice hurt more than the cancer. But on Sunday, he succumbed, aged just 65.

Grant, one of three brothers, was born in 1951. He went to Hampton High and began in journalism as a copy boy and cadet at the short-lived afternoon paper Newsday in 1969. He soon showed his talent with a front page story on Vain, the champion racehorse. When Newsday closed the next year, he moved to the Sporting Globe, then The Herald (both now defunct). After an enterprising stint in England, he returned to work for The Age until 1989 then for the Herald Sun until 2009. He wrote brilliantly about AFL, cricket, golf and racing, indeed on any topic where there was a story to be told or a wrong to be righted.

He was an avid and capable golfer, though of course yearned always to be more capable; he could not have been more avid. He was also a fervent Collingwood supporter and a selector of their team of the century, but there are plenty of Collingwood people to tell you that he never let his love of the Magpies get in the way of his journalistic integrity.

He had the utmost respect of his peers and elders, and was warm and solicitous towards all colleagues, and so had a wide circle of friends. For them all, this is a sad day.

Grant accepted that he was dying, saying it comes to everyone, but to him sooner rather than later, and so until the end he displayed astonishing equanimity about it. That did not mean that was any easier for him than anyone else. It just meant that he approached dying the same way he approached living, with all the courage he had. He is survived by a son, Matthew, and a daughter, Caroline.

A memorial service will be held at Woodlands Golf Club at 2pm on Friday.

 http://www.theage.com.au/sport/sports-journalist-trevor-grant-dies-aged-65-20170306-gurtps.html