Sri Lanka: Rape of Tamil Detainees Politically Motivated Sexual Assaults in Custody Continue Since Conflict

http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/02/26/sri-lanka-rape-tamil-detainees

(London-Hrw) – Sri Lankan security forces have been using rape and other forms of sexual violence to torture suspected members or supporters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. While widespread rape in custody occurred during the armed conflict that ended in May 2009, Human Rights Watch found that politically motivated sexual violence by the military and police continues to the present.

The 141-page report, “‘We Will Teach You a Lesson’: Sexual Violence against Tamils by Sri Lankan Security Forces,” provides detailed accounts of 75 cases of alleged rape and sexual abuse that occurred from 2006-2012 in both official and secret detention centers throughout Sri Lanka. In the cases documented by Human Rights Watch, men and women reported being raped on multiple days, often by several people, with the army, police, and pro-government paramilitary groups frequently participating.

Handed a snack, and then executed: the last hours of the 12-year-old son of a Tamil Tiger

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/handed-a-snack-and-then-executed-the-last-hours-of-the-12yearold-son-of-a-tamil-tiger-8500295.html

Warning: Some may find the second image in the accompanying gallery distressing

New photographs have emerged which raise fresh questions about the conduct of Sri Lanka’s armed forces during the final stages of the operation against Tamil rebels and have led to claims the 12-year-old son of the militants’ leader may have been summarily executed.

A series of photographs taken a few hours apart and on the same camera, show Balachandran Prabhakaran, son of Villupillai Prabhakaran, head of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). One of them shows the boy sitting in a bunker, alive and unharmed, apparently in the custody of Sri Lankan troops. Another, a few hours later, shows the boy’s body lying on the ground, his chest pierced by bullets.

SL military operatives attack peaceful protest against Jaffna SMZ

http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=36052

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 February 2013]
More than ten Sri Lankan military operatives, co-mingling with and camouflaging as protestors in front of Thurkkai Amman temple in Thellippazhai, where a token fast against Colombo converting the former SL Miltiary High Security Zone (HSZ) into Sinhala Military Zone (SMZ) in Jaffna, attacked the peaceful protestors on Friday. The attack came after the SL Opposition Leader Ranil Wickramasinghe had left the site taking part and addressing the protestors. The SL military men went amok on Tamil parliamentarians and journalists at the site of the protest. However, the attackers who were causing panic among the participants were confronted by the protestors. More than one hundred SL policemen silently watched the unfolding episode without restraining or arresting the civil clad military operatives. 

SL military demolishes Hundreds of Tamil houses in Jaffna ‘HSZ’

http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=79&artid=36040

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 February 2013, ]
In a sudden and swift move, Sri Lanka military occupying Jaffna has started demolishing hundreds of houses of Eezham Tamils in the stretch of land at Valikaamam that was occupied by the Sinhala military in the guise of ‘High Security Zone (HSZ)’ two decades back. The war is over, proclaims everyone, including the USA and India. The Tamil public righteously expected the return of their houses and ancestral properties if the war was over. There was propaganda that resettlement takes place stage by stage in the HSZ, which was also endorsed by all the Establishments in complicity. Then how, why, and with what authority vested with whom, the decision has been now taken to raze down the ancestral houses of Eezham Tamils in the so-called HSZ, ask the concerned people up-rooted for more than two decades and finally lost everything to the designs of the genocidal partners. 

World Report 2013: Sri Lanka

http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2013/country-chapters/sri-lanka

The Sri Lankan government in 2012 continued its assault on democratic space and failed to take any meaningful steps towards providing accountability for war crimes committed by either side during the internal armed conflict that ended in 2009.  

The government targeted civil society through threats, surveillance, and clampdowns on activities and free speech. Statements by government officials and government-controlled media named and threatened human rights defenders who called for accountability for wartime abuses or criticized other government policies. Local activists expressed deep concern about the security of their staff and the people they assist.

‘Slap on the face reception’ to UK Under Secretary visiting Vanni

http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=79&artid=36008

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 February 2013, 16:53 GMT]
People of Vanni closed themselves inside their huts and refused to come out when the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Alistair Burt MP, accompanied by the occupying Sinhala military, wanted to ‘speak’ to the uprooted Eezham Tamils at Keappa-pulavu on Thursday. The reason was two-fold: loss of faith in the modus operandi of foreign dignitaries visiting them with the occupying military and then coming out with statements not recognizing the on-going genocide but buttressing the genocidal State; and the other reason was suffocating intimidation by the occupying Sinhala military that no one should tell anything controversial to visiting foreigners. The same military officials bringing visitors to them in the daytime would turn into torture-interrogators in the night time, Eezham Tamils of Vanni commented.

Visit of UK team to Keappaa-pulavu