Obhrai lays a wreath at Elephant Pass (12/11/13). Photograph Colombo Gazette

The ongoing human rights abuses in Sri Lanka were “an elephant in the room” that the government of Sri Lanka cannot hide from said Canada's Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs and International Human Rights, Deepak Obhrai, during a media roundtable on November 30th held together with Corneliu Chisu the MP for Scarborough East-Pickering, regarding his recent visit to Sri Lanka as Canada's representative to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. 

Stating that he had made the visit to Jaffna via an 8 hour drive, after the Sri Lankan government cancelled all flights to Jaffna, Mr. Obhrai drew on his experiences in Jaffna, where he met with newly elected Chief Minister Wigneswaran, Bishop Savundranayagam of Jaffna, and visited the offices of the Jaffna newspaper, the Uthayan, where he met with the paper’s editor, and said that in his meetings he was consistently told of the lack of reconciliation, increasing disregard of human rights, rule of law, and freedom of religion was emphasised by key players in Jaffna.

Responding to questions by the journalists gathered, Mr. Obhrai drew attention to the prevalence of political intimidation and the climate of fear in Jaffna, which he noted “seemed pretty strange considering a government (the TNA) has won an electoral mandate.”

Asked by Tamil Guardian to explain the seeming inconsistency in the Canadian government's approach to human rights, where despite Prime Minister Harper's boycott of CHOGM, Tamil refugees continue to be deported to Sri Lanka despite overwhelming documented evidence of returned deportees facing detention, abuse and torture, Mr. Obhrai said,

“Before somebody is deported out of the country, not only to Sri Lanka, but any other country, there is a very rigid process in place in Canada where they can make appeals and say, indicate to us, why there is a threat to their lives or anything. So this process gives them tremendous opportunity, to all claimant refugees to make a genuine claim."

"It is the question that is raised whether the claim is genuine or not, that is for the independent—and there is an independent board to make the decision, it’s not for the government. The government does not make the decision. Once the independent board has rejected a claim, then the government has to fulfill that mandate.”

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jaya Jayalalitha has hit out at an offer by India to train officials from Sri Lanka’s navy.
She called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to review the “insensitive policy of defence co-operation” as it was in “utter disregard” of the sentiments of Tamil Nadu.

“I wish to convey our strong protest against this insensitive policy of defence co-operation with Sri Lanka, which totally ignores the impact it may have upon the feelings of the people of Tamil Nadu,” she said in a letter to Singh, responding to an offer made by Indian Navy chief Admiral DK Joshi in Colombo on Friday.

“In utter disregard of the sentiments and emotions of the people of Tamil Nadu, the Government of India is persisting with the policy of defence co-operation with the Sri Lankan Armed Forces.”

"Mahinda Rajapaksa always comes up with ideas of commissions of various kinds every time when the noose falls on his neck as an escape mechanism. He thinks that he can fool the international community every time by suggesting of steps that are basically a delaying tactic as he himself and his siblings are accused to have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity"

“There is no need for any international probe because we have our own judicial system and the process of law is going on.”

US Secretary of State John Kerry has announced an extension on exemptions from sanctions on oil purchases from Iran.

“As President Obama has made clear, the United States will continue to vigorously implement our existing sanctions on Iran as the P5+1 seeks to negotiate a comprehensive deal with Iran that will resolve the international community’s concerns regarding Iran’s nuclear program,” he said in a statement.

Jaffna-based Tamil newspaper Uthayan have been awarded the 2013 Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Press Freedom Prize, joint with Muhammad Bekjanov an imprisoned Uzbek journalist.

The award was announced in a ceremony in Strasbourg on Thursday.

RSF's director-general Christophe Deloire said:

A Catholic priest of the Guadalupe Church in Trincomalee was threatened by unidentifiable Sinhalese individuals claiming to be 'intelligence officers' on the night before Maaveerar Naal, 26th November 2013.

Rev. Fr. Johnpillai was grabbed and had a gun pointed at his head by assailants who accused him and Catholic priests in Jaffna, Mannar and Trincomalee as being 'pro-LTTE' and as leading the Tamil people 'astray'.

The problem? He had held mass as usual on Nov 26, and thus 'honoured' LTTE leader Prabhakaran's birthday.

See our earlier post: Letter to UN from NE Sri Lanka Clergy (Feb 2013)

Rev. Fr. Johnpillai's account of Tuesday's attack follows:

Sri Lanka, in a new twist to prove its commitment to justice and accountability has announced that a 'census' counting all those killed in the civil war.

P. B. Abeykoon, reportedly the top civil servant in the ministry of public administration who will supervise the census declared that "the government has nothing to hide".

Another official of the census department said:

'If Only Sharukh Khan', a play by Raani Moorthy, premiered in London yesterday, November 27th. Framed around three characters' love of the Bollywood actor, Shahrukh Khan, the play allows the audience enter the lives of three South Asian women including a former member of the LTTE.