A British Tamil woman who has been on hunger strike in London, demanding the international community deliver justice for the Tamil genocide, has entered her 12^th day of protest this morning.

“I studied Tamil ma’am.” This seemingly innocuous statement poleaxed my new history teacher. I had just completed Class 10 (the Indian equivalent of GCSE) and recently joined the Kendriya Vidyalaya, a system of schools run by the central Ministry of Education, for the final two years of my schooling. My history tutor was shocked because the school did not offer the language I said I studied until the previous year. And it was compulsory to do a language in addition to English in order to be eligible to sit the final exams (A Levels). One might presume that I’d have moved out of Tamil Nadu for high school. I kid you not, I still lived in the heart of Chennai, the capital of the only Tamil-speaking state in the Indian union! 

Protests were held in Paris, which called on the international community to refer Sri Lanka to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the war crimes and genocide the state had perpetrated against Tamil people during the peak of the armed struggle in 2009. 

Pavunraj Sulaxan, who was one of the two Jaffna University students to be shot dead by Sri Lankan police on 21 October 2016, was commemorated on his 28^th birthday by students at the University. 

(Photos provided by HomeToBiloa)

Protests were held in Switzerland, demanding international justice for human rights abuses against Tamils by the Sri Lankan government and calling on the international community to refer Sri Lanka to the International Criminal Court (ICC). 

TNA leader, R Sampanthan emphasised the need for international intervention in achieving a political solution to the Tamil people at a conference with the US delegation led by the Chairman of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee on Asia and the Pacific, Ami Bera, in Colombo last week. 

Writing in The Wire this week, Tamil Guardian features editor Thusiyan Nandakumar said the Indian government must “do more than pay lip service to Tamil concerns”.

Describing escalating tensions between India and Sri Lanka, Nandakumar said it “follows a long history of Sri Lankan ‘Indo-phobia’, driven by a protectionist, Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism that has been central to the island’s politics since independence”.

In India, as elections loom in Tamil Nadu, “outrage over Sri Lanka’s actions has been growing,” he added.  

“These are sentiments that Modi will be acutely aware of, having raised them himself during a trip to Tamil Nadu’s capital earlier this month. In an address where he lauded the southern state, he took care to mention the plight of Indian fishermen arrested by Sri Lankan security forces and reaffirmed his commitment to “the welfare and aspirations of our Tamil brothers and sisters in Sri Lanka”. “We are always committed to ensuring that they live with equality, justice, peace and dignity,” he said.”

Speaking at the UN Human Rights Council Session on 3 March, UK International Human Rights Ambassador, Rita French, raised deep concerns over the violations of religious freedom internationally and highlighted Sri Lanka’s discriminatory policies.

Tamil families of the disappeared marked International Women's Day with a protest in Vavuniya yesterday as they called on the Sri Lankan government to disclose the whereabouts of their forcibly disappeared loved ones. 

The Canadian Tamil Women’s Organization hosted a socially distanced Car rally in Toronto, “demanding Canadian and international action on Sri Lanka and justice for Tamil Genocide.” 

A protest was held in Jaffna today marking International Women's Day, demanding international justice for human rights abuses against women by the Sri Lankan government.

Writing to Minister of State for Asia, Nigel Adams, UK Shadow Minister for Asia and the Pacific, Stephen Kinnock, has called on the government to ‘comprehensively rewrite’ the current proposed UN resolution and questioned why the government’s review of its Global Human Rights sanctions regime does not include “a single senior Sri Lankan government minister, official or military officer”.

In his statement Kinnock criticised the government's refusal to consider referring Sri Lanka to the ICC, maintain that Britain’s position, “should not be determined simply by the veto-wielding intentions of two of its permanent members”.