Tamil rights violated by successive Sri Lanka governments says Chief Minister on World Human Rights Day

11 December 2015

The rights of Tamils as individuals and as a People have been violated over the course of time by successive Sri Lankan governments said the Northern Provincial Council Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran in his statement to mark World Human Rights Day. 

Sri Lanka’s former Supreme Court judge, in his statement issued in Tamil and English, quoting article one of the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights said,

“The legitimate right of self-determination has been denied to the Tamils instead their right to equality, a central human right, has been violated throughout the period of Sri Lanka’s existence. The right to life of individual Tamils has been violated through extra-judicial killings in which the State and its agents actively participated. There has been no accountability for any of the killings that have taken place.”

On the right to liberty, Mr Wigneswaran added,

“Again a non-defeasible right stated in the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights continues to be violated with the incarceration of many hundreds of young Tamils detained without trial or deprived of proper hearings. Their continued imprisonment is a continuing violation of this important right by the Government of Sri Lanka.”

Welcoming the establishment of the International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and drawing upon an Northern Provincial Council passed in February, the Chief minister of the predominantly Tamil Northern Province said,

“A resolution of the Northern Provincial Council in February this year had already characterised the consecutive killings of Tamil civilians as genocide. Needless to say an obligation arises on the Government on Sri Lanka to ensure that the perpetrators of the genocide are brought to trial. But recent statements by government leaders are confusing and contradictory but consisted in one respect in that they play down the extent of the system crimes so clearly outlined by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Report on Sri Lanka this year.”

Mr Wigneswaran went on to highlight the illegal occupation of Tamil land by Sri Lanka’s military and evidence of ongoing human rights violations under Sri Lanka’s newly elected government. 

See full statement here.

NPC passes resolution asking UN to investigate genocide of Tamils by Sri Lanka state (10 Feb 2015)