Open letter to Sri Lankan President Rajapakse Condemning Human Rights abuses

international | anti-war / imperialism | news report Wednesday July 08, 2009 15:13 by Joe Higgins MEP - Socialist Party info at joehiggins dot eu

Joe Higgins has pledged to use his MEP seat as a platform to fight against war and the war mongers

In this letter from Joe Higgins MEP to Sri Lankan President Rajapakse, Joe condemns the brutal attacks on the Tamil people and journalists , and Rajapakse's governments complicity in this.

Dear President Rajapakse,

As a Member of the European Parliament, I want to express my disgust at the denial of civil and democratic rights in Sri Lanka. The inaction of your government in the face of repeated attacks on journalists and your opponents is disgraceful.

Six months ago, the editor of the Sunday Leader; Lasantha Wickrematunge was brutally murdered. Yet still nobody has been brought before the courts in connection with this killing or with the destruction a few days earlier of an independent TV station.

Now I hear that there have been further attacks on journalists and that a popular astrologer was imprisoned for three months for "predicting" the end of the President's term of office!

I am also outraged by the reviving of the Press Council, an unelected body with power to imprison and fine, to assist you in persecuting those who speak out against you: This smacks of a brutal dictatorship, as do the camps of over 300,000 imprisoned Tamils in the North.

I demand freedom of speech for all, including the right of the media to speak the truth as they see it. In addition, I call for the abolition of the Press Council and the liberation of all Tamil people from the camps.

I intend to raise these matters with others in the European Parliament as well as with workers' organisations across the world.

Yours sincerely,

Joe Higgins MEP
Socialist Party (Ireland) and Committee for a Workers' International