Sri Lanka: “Don’t Abuse the Displaced”

[Human Rights Watch] “It is time for concerned governments like Japan, India, and the US to ensure that President Mahinda Rajapakse’s government and the Tamil Tigers allow the victims of this conflict to live with justice and dignity. Both sides should agree to a humanitarian corridor and otherwise respect the laws of war.” Our latest…

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Sri Lanka special report: Failure to investigate

[Committee to Protect Journalists] As the Sri Lankan government steps up its war with the LTTE, assaults on journalists are on the rise. So are suspicions that the government is complicit in these attacks. Sri Lanka’s journalists are under intensive assault. Authorities have failed to carry out effective and credible investigations into the killing of…

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Tamil killed himself ‘to guide others to liberation’

[Guardian.co.uk] His life had taken him from the northern tip of Sri Lanka to a pebble-dashed semi in north-west London and finally to a cold square in Geneva. But it is for his death that the 26-year-old Tamil, Murugathasan Varnakulasingham, is likely to be remembered. A little after eight o’clock last Thursday night, the computing…

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38 civilians killed in Sri Lankan war

[CBC News] At least 38 civilians have been killed and 140 others wounded in government artillery attacks and air raids on a tiny rebel-controlled territory in Sri Lanka, a health official says. The attack was carried out in an area that included a government designated “no-fire zone,” said Dr. Thurairaja Varatharaja, who works in the…

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Tamil MPs say Sri Lanka ignoring civilian safety

[Associated Press] The pro-rebel Tamil National Alliance political party said it had managed to compile a list of the civilians killed using the Tamil media, witness accounts and reports from medical authorities in the war zone. According to its count, more than 2,000 civilians were killed since December and more than 4,500 were wounded, said…

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