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.
Stu Harrison
The report of the United Nations’ fact-finding mission to Gaza, led by former South African jurist Richard Goldstone, was released in September. It detailed atrocious human rights abuses by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) during Israel’s December-January war on the Palestinian territory.
The Sri Lankan government has continued to use “emergency” measures justified by Sri Lanka’s 25-year civil war against the pro-independence Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to severely limit democratic rights, despite declaring a final victory in the war in May.
“The war could have finished the day before I arrived”, independent journalist and author Antony Loewenstein told Green Left Weekly of his recent trip to the besieged Palestinian territory of Gaza.
More than 50 people attended a Greenpeace meeting with paroled Japanese anti-whaling activist Toru Suzuki on September 9.
The communications chief for United Nations children’s charity UNICEF, James Elder, has been given until September 21 to leave Sri Lanka for making statements critical of the government.
More than 100 people attended a meeting organised by the Sri Lankan Human Rights Project at the University of Sydney on August 31.
The recent resignation by NSW minister John Della Bosca over his affair with a woman revealed just how the big political parties and the corporate media trivialise Australian politics.
Since being evicted from their homes in the East Jerusalem community of Sheikh Jarrah on August 2 in a pre-dawn raid, the Hannoun and al-Ghawe families, both Palestinian, have been living on the street.
Months after the murder of prominent journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge in Sri Lanka, more journalists have been attacked as part of the Sri Lankan government’s war on free speech.
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