Category: Featured Headlines

Days after the Parliament passed the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in December 2019, T Yanadhan, a 28-year-old man born to Sri Lankan Tamil parents living in a refugee camp in Pavalathanur in Tamil Nadu’s Salem district, sought the collector’s permission to kill himself. Obligingly, he uploaded his petition on YouTube.

Yanadhan is not an Indian citizen. He’s not a Sri Lankan citizen. He’s not a citizen of any country, really. But India is the only state system he knows. His parents fled north Sri Lanka after the second phase of the civil war and never returned. Yanadhan was born in the refugee camp in India.

Yanadhan is one among 94,069 Sri Lanka Tamil refugees living in various parts of Tamil Nadu: most of them in 107 camps in 15 districts in the state. According to a report of the Ministry of Home Affairs, more than 3 lakh refugees entered India in different phases between 1983 and 2012 due to the ethnic conflict. While 99,469 were repatriated to Sri Lanka till 1995, some refugees left for other countries on their own. After 1995, there was no organised repatriation.

None of the refugees has voting or property rights in India. Most of them have lost them in Sri Lanka as well. Their last hope was the CAA. The law expedited citizenship for persecuted immigrants except Muslims from three neighbouring countries – Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. It left out Sri Lanka. The CAA passed only because the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), the ruling party in Tamil Nadu and once the biggest supporter of Tamils fighting for their identity in Sri Lanka, backed the law.

The AIADMK has one member in the Lok Sabha and had 11 members in the Rajya Sabha. When the Bill was introduced in the Rajya Sabha, all 11 AIADMK MPs voted for it. The Bill was passed in the Rajya Sabha with 125 MPs voting in favour and 99 MPs voting against it. The law excluded refugee Tamils in India and the AIADMK gave the Centre a free pass.

Prof V Suryanarayan, an academic, an authority in Tamil politics in Sri Lanka and author of many books, including ‘The Refugee Dilemma’, says, “New Delhi is unfortunately adopting a different yardstick for Tamils. They (are ready) to give citizenship to those who have sought asylum from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. But those who have come from Sri Lanka are treated as illegal immigrants”.

Tamils fled Sri Lanka for India for a variety of reasons at different times, mostly to escape the violence. Some Tamils left from the tea plantations where they had been sent as indentured labour during British colonial rule, when the racial violence spread to those areas especially in the decade of the 1970s.

Many of those families have since returned. But the largest chunk of families came to India from north and east Sri Lanka to escape the civil war and also protect their children against forced recruitment by militant groups, especially the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). One such recruiter, Tamizhini, gives a poignant account of how child soldiers were forced into conscription by the LTTE in her biography published recently.

Yanadhan’s parents can apply for Indian citizenship if they give up Sri Lankan citizenship. But he was born in India as a refugee. There are, according to Prof Suryanarayan, around 25,000 such stateless people. They continue to be housed in camps where they get some financial assistance. They make a living doing odd jobs and working on construction sites. If they’d been back home, many of them would have been doctors and engineers. Some have tried to return but have scurried back to the camps, judging it safer to stay as refugees in India than in Sri Lanka.

Prof Suryanarayan says it is not an easy life, but it isn’t too difficult either. “True, they live in makeshift homes. But some of them have bought three-wheelers and mopeds. They get a small stipend and many have extended their homes to include a back yard where they can grow some vegetables,” he said. That said, at the end of the day, they’re still refugees.

When the AIADMK voted in favour of the CAA, it raised the issue of citizenship for these stateless Tamils. At the time, and later as well, Home Minister Amit Shah assured the House that dual citizenship would be considered. But the refugees are pragmatic: their quiver has no arrows any more.

And the reality is that for the Tamils of Sri Lanka, the capital of the country is still Colombo, not Jaffna as they hoped it would be. India, which promised to help them create their homeland, necessarily has to be a disinterested observer. So, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s assurance in Chennai earlier this month while campaigning for the assembly elections that “India is always committed to ensuring that the Tamils in Sri Lanka lived with equity, equality, justice, peace and dignity” means little to them.

The United Kingdom (UK) says a new resolution to be presented to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva at its ongoing session, will maintain focus on Sri Lanka.

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told the Council today that the UK will present a new resolution on Sri Lanka to maintain the focus on reconciliation and on accountability.

“Madam President, we want to see an effective international human rights system that holds to account those who systematically violate human rights. The Human Rights Council must be ready to play its role in full, or I fear we will see its reputation sorely damaged,” the Foreign Secretary said in his speech.

He said the UK wants the Council to succeed and so it will work with its international partners and continue to speak up in the Council for what is right.

The 46th Session of the UNHRC opened in Geneva today with Sri Lanka on the formal agenda.

The Core Group on Sri Lanka, consisting of Canada, Germany, North Macedonia, Malawi, Montenegro and the UK will be presenting a new resolution on Sri Lanka at the session.

The first draft (zero draft) of the resolution on Sri Lanka to be tabled at the session calls on the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to enhance its monitoring and reporting on the human rights situation in Sri Lanka.

Baby Shaykh was only 20 days old when his life came to a tragic end last December out of a sudden illness. Born in a Muslim family in Sri Lanka, his last rites would be a burial followed by a funeral but instead, authorities cremated his body against the wishes of his parents. A rapid test for COVID-19 (an antigen test) returned positive, yet his parents, including his mother who was breast feeding him, tested negative. This has created doubts in his parents’ mind about the credibility of the test. The authorities had no sympathy for the desperate pleas and protests of Baby Shaykh’s parents. The bodies of Muslims who die or are suspected of having died of COVID-19 are resigned to the same fate across Sri Lanka.

Muslims, who make up nine per cent of the population of Sri Lanka, have historically faced violence, harassment, and discrimination, especially since 2012. This anti-Muslim sentiment in the country has now manifested itself in an arbitrary government policy which orders the cremation of anyone who has died of COVID-19 or are suspected to have died of COVID-19. This has caused great distress to Muslims, as the act of cremation is explicitly forbidden in Islam. With the human rights situation of Sri Lanka coming under review at the 46th UN Human Rights Council session, beginning on 22 February 2021, it is imperative that the government of Bangladesh, as a member of the council, stands in solidarity with the minority Muslim community in Sri Lanka who are being denied dignity in their final moments.

While it is becoming increasingly difficult for Muslims in Sri Lanka to live in peace, with the constant fear of further threats, discrimination and violence hanging over the community, the government seems to have used COVID-19 as an excuse to ensure Muslims in Sri Lanka cannot even die in peace.

Sri Lanka is one of the few countries in the world which has a forced cremations policy to dispose of COVID-19 victims. Guidelines issued by the Ministry of Health in 2020 originally permitted both burials and cremations. However, the health ministry amended the guidelines to make cremations mandatory after the body of the first Muslim to succumb to the virus was forcibly cremated, against the wishes of the victim’s family, and in spite of vehement protests from religious leaders, politicians and the wider Muslim community

The government’s chief epidemiologist, Dr. Sugath Samaraweera, claimed that burials would “contaminate ground drinking water”. The State Minister of Primary Health Care, Epidemics and COVID-19 Disease Control, Dr. Sudarshini Fernandopulle, in January 2021, has since refuted this claim. Additionally, interim guidance set out by the World Health Organization on the safe management of a dead body in the context of COVID-19, provides that victims of the virus can be buried or cremated. In a letter to the Health Minister, Muslim groups reported that over 185 countries allow for the burial of COVID-19 victims, making Sri Lanka an outlier in its disregard for the religious practices of minorities.

The Muslim community in Sri Lanka has strongly criticized the forced cremation of COVID-19 victims. Under pressure from various groups, including the Minister of Justice, Ali Sabry PC, it was reported on 4 November that a government-appointed committee would meet to reassess the government’s policy on mandatory cremations, but on 22 November, the committee reaffirmed the earlier decision, without giving reasons. Subsequently, a second expert committee appointed by the health ministry in December, stated that burial of victims of COVID-19 would be safe. Yet, the country’s health minister dismissed these recommendations in Parliament, stating that the second committee was “informal”.

On 1 December 2020, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka dismissed all Fundamental Rights petitions before it which challenged the directive on mandatory cremations, without providing any reasoning, thereby closing the door to further legal challenges, and any domestic recourse to this violation of religious rights. According to a news report in the same month, of 124 deaths due to COVID-19 whose bodies have been cremated, as many as 50 of them are Muslims. There have also been reports of instances where bodies of Muslims who tested negative for COVID-19 were forcibly cremated.

On 11 February 2021, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, speaking in Parliament, stated that burials of COVID-19 victims would be allowed. Yet, the next day, the State Minister Sudarshini Fernandopulle, who had earlier sought compliance with scientific findings about COVID-19, stated that mandatory cremations would continue until the government’s expert committee reached a conclusion. The polarized opinions of expert committees and indecision of the Sri Lankan authorities, in spite of the clear international guidelines, not only demonstrate a lack of empathy towards religious minorities in the country but also a disregard to their human right.

Reports also indicate that families are being forced to bear the cost of cremation, typically around LKR 50,000-60,000 (approximately BDT 21,850-26,200), in a year that has economically strained many families. The cruelty of not only having to stand idle as a loved one’s body is desecrated but being forced to shoulder the cost of this act has led some Muslim families to refuse the ashes and the associated payment, in an act of protest.

Against a backdrop of attacks targeting Muslim businesses, homes and places of worship in the country through 2014, 2017, 2018, and following the Easter Sunday bombings in 2019, these latest directives come at a time when Muslims in Sri Lanka already have plenty to fear. In a year when we have seen the importance of solidarity as communities rally together to survive the pandemic, Sri Lanka has chosen to further alienate a community already reeling from violence, hatemongering, and discrimination.

The government of Bangladesh, as a regional ally, can demand that the Sri Lankan government reverses this unnecessary practice of forced cremations that has had a devastating and discriminatory effect on the Muslim community. The Bangladeshi government can also raise the issue as a concern at the upcoming UN Human Rights Council sessions, where it has the power to vote in support of promoting human rights in Sri Lanka. At a time when anti-Muslim rhetoric and sentiment is on a rise in Sri Lanka, the government of Bangladesh must stand in solidarity with the Muslim community in Sri Lanka who are being put through unspeakable pain. It must uphold its international commitments to ensure that no one is subjected to discrimination based on their religion, and the right to freedom of religion. The Bangladeshi government must join the fight to end this discriminatory policy and ensure Muslims in Sri Lanka can be laid to rest in peace.

Saad Hammadi is South Asia Campaigner at Amnesty International. His Twitter handle is @saadhammadi

This op-ed originally appeared in The Dhaka Tribune

China has called on Sri Lanka to strictly follow international bidding procedures after concerns were raised over a Chinese funded power project in the North of the country.

In a statement issued today, a Chinese company defended the proposed wind-photovoltaic-energy storage hybrid power generation project in the North.

Sionsoar-Etechwin JV said that tens of thousands of “poor people” in Northern Sri Lanka will benefit from the project.

The company said that the politicization of the project goes against the interests of the people and does not meet the manifesto of the current Government.

Sionsoar-Etechwin JV said that the project is funded by the Asian Development Bank, in full accordance with the international bidding procedures.

“According to the bidding regulations, the consortium is only responsible for the construction and handover of the project. All moves are under the complete supervision and management of the employer-Ceylon Electricity Board. There is no so-called “security” concern issue raised by third parties,” the company said.

The consortium said that it strictly abides by the laws and regulations of Sri Lanka and the relevant requirements of the Asian Development Bank as well as the Ceylon Electricity Board.

At the same time, the Chinese company said it firmly opposes any “outrageous interference” by any third party without legal and factual basis.

The consortium called on the Sri Lankan Government to strictly follow the international bidding procedures to implement the project, and protect the legitimate rights and interests of the contractor, as well as its own credibility and international reputation.