Joy at release of Catholic rights activists

A chorus of international protest has forced the Sri Lankan Government to release two Catholic human-rights activists two days after their arbitrary arrest. Ruki Fernando of Inform Human Rights Documentation Centre, and oblate of Mary Immaculate, Fr Praveen Mahesan, director of the Centre for Peace and Reconciliation, were detained on 16 March under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, which would have allowed them to be detained without trial for months. The Government released them without registering the cases against them.

Both were arrested while on a fact-finding mission to the Kilinochchi area, earlier under the control of the Tamil Tiger terrorists, to investigate the detention of a woman activist who was highlighting “disappearances” of civilians including her son during the closing stage of the protracted civil war. UN agencies have estimated that 40,000 Tamils perished in May 2009 in the final stage of the war that ended with the defeat of the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam, or Tamil Tigers) who had merged with fleeing civilians.

From 1983, the LTTE had carried out a bloody campaign for autonomy for ethnic Tamil majority areas in the northern and eastern provinces. In Sri Lanka as a whole, Tamils account for 18 per cent of its 20 million people while Sinhala-speaking Buddhists account for 70 per cent of the population.

Ethnic Tamil Bishop Rayappu Joseph of Mannar expressed “joy and relief” over the unconditional release of the two Catholic activists. The arrests came after more than 200 Catholic clergy led by Bishop Joseph submitted a petition to the United Nations Human Rights Council pleading for an international investigation into the “war crimes” committed in the May 2009 fighting. “Almost five years after the end of the war, we have not seen any truth and justice emerging from domestic mechanisms,” the petition lamented.

The Free Media Movement, an organisation of Sri Lankan journalists, on 23 March criticised the gag order issued by the courts restraining the two Catholic activists from speaking to the media.