After the controversy over holding a literary festival in Sri Lanka in January – white-washing war crimes? – the issue continues to resonate. Here’s an event organised by English PEN in London on 10 April: Should writers boycott festivals in countries with poor records on free speech and human rights? Or is it always better…
Showing all posts tagged Sri Lanka
Australia must take action against Sri Lanka war criminals
While most Australian journalists dutifully followed Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard around the US recently – remind me why so many hacks travel there and do nothing but report on press conferences and fawning speeches in Congress? – Inner City Press at the UN in New York asks real questions: Sri Lankan citizen Palitha Kohona…
Sri Lankan regime can only teach the world how to murder Tamil civilians
The recent push to boycott and/or highlight the gross human rights abuses in Sri Lanka during the Galle Literary Festival – something I supported with a strongly worded petition – continues now in a different form: An international human rights watchdog has called on over 50 invited countries to boycott a conference aimed at sharing…
Colombo’s regime must be isolated not embraced by clueless cricket types
Sri Lanka remains a police state with no accountability for its war crimes against the Tamil people and now we learn that a prominent Westerner will be taking blood money and promoting the nation globally. Time to boycott him: Former English cricketer turned television commentator Tony Greig has been appointed as tourism ambassador for Sri…
US Senate furthers call for taking Colombo to court over mass killings
The following news is undoubtedly positive as a first step to holding the Sri Lankan government accountable for war crimes during its war against the Tamil people but is this really about payback against China for becoming too close to Colombo? The US government has passed a resolution calling upon Colombo, the international community and…
Of course Sri Lanka should pay a price for murdering countless Tamils
These are encouraging noises from Washington but one can’t help but wonder if it’s because China has essentially bought off Colombo and locked out the US. Payback time? Sri Lanka could be hauled before a war crimes tribunal over the killing of ‘many thousands of civilians’ in the final months of its separatist war with…
Israel should be given the South African treatment
My following article is written with Australians for Palestine co-founder Moammar Mashni and published in Online Opinion: “I am a black South African, and if I were to change the names, the description of what is happening in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank would be a description of what is happening in South…
Talking to Finkel, Anderson and Stewart in India on occupation
I recently attended the Jaipur Literature Festival in India and moderated a session with three men who know something about war and conflict. Brit Rory Stewart, New Yorker’s Jon Lee Anderson and the Washington Post’s David Finkel. The video of the event is now online (the sound and picture aren’t perfectly in sync but you’ll…
What one person can say about Colombo’s brutality by not visiting
The recent campaign against the Galle Literary Festival in Sri Lanka, of which I was involved, was related to highlighting the gross human rights abuses in the country. It caused global discussion and forced both Colombo and the festival organisers on the defensive. “What? Us? Backing war crimes? Never!” Here’s Sri Lankan born writer and…
Wikileaks cables on Sri Lanka and its merry ways
Anybody who examines the situation in Sri Lanka can’t ignore the human rights abuses committed by the Tamil Tigers: India expressed its concern about the Human Rights situation in Sri Lanka and the way the LTTE used civilians as human shields in 2009, the latest WikiLeaks cable revealed. The cable said that during a meeting…