The Sri Lankan government has updated an extraordinary gazette that continues to ban several Tamil diaspora groups and individuals as 'terrorists'.
The new gazette includes updated designations of several individuals, claiming both these organisations and individuals support “terrorism-related activities,” extending a ban that was first introduced more than a decade ago.
The gazette extraordinary issued by the Defence Secretary, Air Vice Marshal Sampath Thuyacontha has ordered that all funds belonging to the organizations and individuals listed be frozen including any other financial and economic resources belonging or held by them.
The list also reaffirms the ban on 222 individuals allegedly linked to terrorism.
The organisations blacklisted by the Sri Lankan government include:
• Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
• Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO)
• Tamil Coordinating Committee (TCC)
• World Tamil Movement (WTM)
• Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE)
• World Tamil Relief Fund (WTRF)
• National Council of Canadian Tamils (NCCT)
• Tamil Youth Organisation (TYO)
Other organisations listed include several linked to Islamic groups, such as the National Thowheed Jama’ath (NTJ) and the Sri Lanka Islamic Student Movement (SLISM).
Despite a change in government following the election of Anura Kumara Dissanayake, Sri Lanka has maintained the same policies of criminalising Tamil political activism that were in place under the Rajapaksa regime.
For years various Sri Lankan regimes have proscribed a range of Tamil diaspora groups and individuals. A ban could make it a criminal offence for Sri Lankan citizens to maintain contact with these organisations or their members and stifles links between these groups and individuals on the island. Despite outcry over the initial listings in 2014 under Mahinda Rajapaksa, successive governments have continued to maintain the proscription even when the Rajapaksas have been out of power.
The full notification can be found here in English and here in Tamil.
