Skip Nav | Home | Mobile | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Security | Support Us

World

Tamils March in London Against Sri Lanka Concentration Camps

Peter Marshall | 17.10.2009 22:53 | Repression | Social Struggles | World

Several thounsand Tamils marched through London on Saturday 17 Oct 2009 to protest against the continued detention of civilians in Sri Lankan camps, calling on the UK government to press for their release. Photo Copyright (C) 2009. Peter Marshall

Ban Ki-Moon - Tamil blood on your hands
Ban Ki-Moon - Tamil blood on your hands

Children with banner and placards
Children with banner and placards

'Camp' at the front of the march
'Camp' at the front of the march

UN flags
UN flags

In the Camp 1
In the Camp 1

In the Camp 2
In the Camp 2


Several thousand Tamils marched through the centre of London today to protest against the continued illegal detention of over 280,000 Tamil civilians - including at least 50,000 children in miserable and squalid conditions in camps run by the Sri Lankan military.

At the head of the march was a small 'camp' with posts and 'barbed wire' holding a number of protesters, and in front of it several 'hooded detainees' were harangued and threatened by 'Sri Lankan Army' guards.

Reports from the camps in Sri Lanka are limited, as the Sri Lankan government severely restricts access by aid agencies and international monitors and the international media, but they have told of crowded tents, inadequate sanitation - with one toilet for every 200 refugees, inadequate water supplies, food and medical facilities. There is widespread malnutrition and jaundice and other diseases spreading fast.

According to 'The Times', more than 1400 people die every week inside the camps, and they are certainly very much overcrowded, with Amnesty International reporting a population numerically equivalent to that of Bournemouth being confined in an area the same as Wembley Stadium.

In a letter to Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the British Tamils Forum, organisers of the protest, detailed their deep concerns, pointing out that although the Sri Lankan government had announced that it would release 80% of the detainees within 180 days, more than 150 days later only round 20,000 of the 300, thousand - around 7% - have been released.

The situation in the camps is unbearable, and in one recent incident six unarmed people including a woman and three children were shot as they tried to escape. They warn that conditions will worsen dramatically with the impending monsoon season, as the camps are expected to flood.

They also accuse the Sri Lankan military of massacring over 20,000 Tamil civilians in the last few days of the war and of now systematically destroying the evidence of this in an attempt to avoid war crime prosecutions.

The Tamils have completely lost confidence in the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, who failed to take any action to save the refugees trapped in the 'Safe Zone' who were killed in the shelling. They ask that the international community should actively object to his reappointment as General Secretary.

The protest also called on the UK government to demand :

- that Sri Lanka immediately release the Tamil people, and give full access for the UN, Red Cross and aid agencies to the camps to help them return to where they choose to live.

- that a full list of those detained is published - many families do not know whether their missing members are still alive.

- that those detained as alleged LTTE (Tamil Tigers) be treated according to international law and be given access to legal representation,

- a full independent international investigation into war crimes

- an end to activities such as building Buddhist temples designed to destroy the character of the Tamil areas.

The demonstration was considerably smaller than the massive Tamil demonstrations seen in London before the defeat of the Tamil Tigers, and the mood was considerably quieter.

More pictures on My London Diary shortly

Peter Marshall
- e-mail: petermarshall@cix.co.uk
- Homepage: http://mylondondiary.co.uk

Comments

Hide the following comment

thanks for excellent piece

17.10.2009 23:39

your photos are always very good. thanks too for the informative piece you took the trouble to write. this is good indymedia journalism.

appreciated.

grateful


Publish

Publish your news

Do you need help with publishing?

/regional publish include --> /regional search include -->

World Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech