Close X
Sunday, November 24, 2024
ADVT 
National

Pressure Sri Lanka on human rights: activists

Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 15 Sep, 2020 10:47 PM
  • Pressure Sri Lanka on human rights: activists

A group of Tamil Canadians is calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for legal changes to remove sovereign immunity as a defence for international crimes.

Such a move would enable Sri Lankan families to seek justice for their disappeared loved ones, said Kumanan Kunaratnam, a Tamil activist in Ottawa, in a Parliament Hill news conference Monday.

A civil war gripped the country between 1983 and 2009, with insurgents who sought a separate Tamil state battling a central government dominated by Sri Lanka's majority Sinhalese.

Amnesty International estimates at least 60,000 people have disappeared in Sri Lanka since the late 1980s, with the activists saying most of the victims are Tamil. Last year the United Nations noted that thousands of people in Sri Lanka don't know what happened to missing loved ones.

"This is an issue that must deeply concern all human beings," Kunaratnam said.

The legal doctrine of sovereign immunity largely protects governments from court actions in other countries. There are exceptions, however, such as when a state engages in commercial activities.

Kunaratnam said sovereign immunity should be removed. "If sovereign immunity can be removed as a defence for a commercial transaction, why cannot it be removed for international crimes?"

He said that such legislation will not only benefit Tamils but also victims of enforced disappearances across the globe.

Hundreds of thousands of people have vanished during conflicts or periods of repression in at least 85 countries around the world, according the United Nations.

A group of four Tamil Canadians finished a 16-day "walk for justice" from Brampton, Ont., to Parliament Hill in Ottawa to raise awareness about the human rights violations in Sri Lanka. Another group of three activists walked from Montreal to Ottawa.

The group also wants Canada to refer Sri Lanka to the committee established under the United Nations convention against enforced disappearance.

Although Sri Lanka ratified the UN's convention against enforced disappearances in 2016, it invoked a provision of the international treaty that prevents victims from petitioning the committee over a country's violations of the convention. Only another country can make such a complaint against Sri Lanka.

Canada, however, has not signed on to the convention at all, limiting its standing to make such a complaint.

MORE National ARTICLES

Feds short $14B on equalization: PBO

Feds short $14B on equalization: PBO
The parliamentary budget officer's review of a decade of federal payments to provinces showed that federal coffers have saved $14.5 billion over that time.

Feds short $14B on equalization: PBO

Military members asked to use COVID-19 app

Military members asked to use COVID-19 app
Chief of defence staff Gen. Jonathan Vance and Defence Department deputy minister Jody Thomas say they understand some may have concerns when it comes to privacy and secrecy.

Military members asked to use COVID-19 app

Tories ask languages czar to probe WE deal

Tories ask languages czar to probe WE deal
Conservative MP Richard Martel alleges in a letter to commissioner Raymond Theberge that the youth group did not have the ability to deliver the multimillion-dollar Canada Student Service Grant program in both of Canada's official languages.

Tories ask languages czar to probe WE deal

Parents take Quebec to court for online learning

Parents take Quebec to court for online learning
Human rights lawyer Julius Grey told Quebec Superior Court Justice Frederic Bachand the decision to send one's child to class during the COVID-19 pandemic is an extremely private and personal one.

Parents take Quebec to court for online learning

Bottle depots to accept cannabis containers?

Bottle depots to accept cannabis containers?
The Alberta Bottle Depot Association says paying a deposit on the containers and having it returned at dropoff would help divert plastic from landfills and stabilize declines in depot income.

Bottle depots to accept cannabis containers?

Space agency gets first female president

Space agency gets first female president
Longtime public servant Lisa Campbell has been tapped by the Trudeau government to take the agency's reins, the first woman to head the organization since it was founded in 1989.

Space agency gets first female president