Mission & Justice

22/3/08

A team of international legal experts have stepped up criticism of Sri Lanka, saying that repeated calls to improve its human rights record have been ignored. The International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) said on Tuesday Colombo lacks the political will to probe alleged human rights abuses during its war with Tamil separatists. Last month, the IIGEP, which was monitoring the government’s commission of inquiry, announced it was quitting in frustration. The IIGEP includes experts from the European Union, United Nations, Australia, Canada, India, France and the United States.

(more…)

Melani Manel Perera; 12/4/08

Dozens of families are “forgotten” by the government, which is holding in camps refugees with water and electricity problems - 5 toilets for 52 families. It is not giving them new homes, nor work or schooling. A gift package of a few euro will make the celebration of the new year more serene, on April 13. A gift package for the poorest victims of the tsunami of 2004, to allow them to celebrate Suriya Mangallaya (Feast of the sun), the new year of the Sinhala and Tamils, which falls between April 13 and 14. In the Sunanda Upananda camp in Moratuwa, a district of Colombo, 52 families, “forgotten” by the state, will receive 5 kilogrammes of rice, two coconuts, some clothing, dry food and handmade traditional sweets, at a value of about 1,500 rupees (9.10 euro). Sugala Kumarie, coordinator of the People’s planning commission, explains to AsiaNews that the situation in the camp is the worst in the district of Colombo.

(more…)

Mohammed Rasooldeen; 7/4/08

The Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), the Kingdom’s highest court of appeals, has sent the case of Rizana Nafeek, the Sri Lankan maid who was convicted of killing a four-month-old baby in her care, back to the High Court in Dawadmi for clarifications.The case was sent to the SJC after the Court of Cassation upheld the guilty verdict and the death sentence handed down by a three-member bench, headed by Chief Judge Abdullah Abdulaziz Al-Rosaimi, at the Dawadmi High Court. “I am happy that the case has been sent back to the High Court where the original death sentence was given,” said Khateb Fahad Al-Shammary, Nafeek’s lawyer. He added that the hearing is to take place tomorrow.

(more…)

Mohammed Rasooldeen; 20/2/08

A traffic court in Al-Kharj ordered Sunday to pay the blood money of a Lankan maid who died in a car accident 24 years ago. The delay was due to the case filed being misplaced for years. Traffic Court judge Kalaf Al-Mutlaq ordered Fahd Al-Qahtani, a Saudi schoolteacher, to pay SR25,000 to the next of kin of V.M. Indrawathie, who died when she was 30 years old in a car accident in Al-Kharj, 60 km from Riyadh. According to the police report, the accident had taken place on Aug. 11, 1984, when Al-Qahtani, who was 17 years old at the time, crashed his car into another vehicle after he swerved into the wrong side of the road.

(more…)

Hayat Al-Ghamdi; 14/2/08

Kuwait’s Deputy Education Minister Ali Al-Barrak confirmed yesterday that approximately 300 Saudi women graduates had applied for teaching jobs in his country. The women applied for jobs after the ministry announced its requirements for male and female teachers in newspapers and on the Internet. Al-Barrak said there had been no official coordination between the two GCC countries in this respect and described the Saudis’ job application as “normal.” He said the ministry would conduct tests and personal interviews before appointing new Saudi teachers.

(more…)

Mohammed Rasooldeen; 7/2/08

A diamond necklace worth SR4,000 and SR3,500 in cash is part of the compensation that will be given to a Sri Lankan woman whose daughter starved to death in October 2005 while working as a maid in the Kingdom.  Al-Nashwan Recruiting Company in Riyadh handed over the compensation to W.S.M.S. Wijesundera, charge d’affaires at the Sri Lankan Embassy, yesterday. The money and jewelry will reportedly be sent to the maid’s mother, Ratnaseeli, to help the maid’s impoverished family in Gonapola, a remote village in the Kalutara district of Sri Lanka. Vasanthi came to the Kingdom in October 2000 and died five years later from complications attributed to malnutrition, according to an autopsy. It was discovered that the maid had not received her salary for the period of her work and compensation for the unpaid labor alone would amount to SR24,000.

(more…)

Andra Jackson; 6/2/08

Twenty-one Sri Lankan refugees will be on their way to Australia today, leaving the controversial Nauru detention camps finally empty. The group, who are the last of 82 Sri Lankan asylum seekers taken to Nauru 10 months ago, learnt yesterday that the Australian Government had granted them permanent protection visas. They fly out of Nauru today for Brisbane, an immigration department spokesman said. Their departure clears the way for the Federal Government to implement its pledge on January 11 to close the Nauru camp and formally end the Howard government’s so-called Pacific Solution for asylum seekers.

(more…)

Mohammed Rasooldeen; 30/1/08

A Sri Lankan maid who left the Kingdom on Saturday morning on Saudi Arabian Airlines flight SV784 died en route to Colombo. The woman, Letchumi Devi Rasiah, 30, was returning home on an exit visa after spending one year and 10 months in the Kingdom. The cabin crew gave medical aid when Letchumi developed chest pain two hours after the aircraft left Riyadh. An airline official in Colombo said that the entire crew had done its best to save the woman. “She was given oxygen and first aid was administered but to no avail.”

(more…)

Mohammed Rasooldeen; 28/1/08
A court in Jeddah yesterday gave three Asian workers, sentenced to death in relation to the murder of an elderly Saudi woman during an armed burglary, seven days to appeal the verdict. Those condemned to death include Haleema Nissa Cader, a Sri Lankan national, Naushad, her Indian husband, and K.M.S. Bandaranaike, also a Sri Lankan. Cader has an eight-year-old son and is from Kantalai, 300 km from the Sri Lankan capital. Her husband, Naushad, is from Tamil Nadu. The couple lived in Jeddah before their arrest. Bandaranaike is from Kurunegala and is married to Henelle Menike, who lives in Sri Lanka. Another five Sri Lankans — including two women — have also been sentenced to five years in jail and 500 lashes for their part in the burglary and death.

(more…)

25/1/08

A Sri Lankan maid, in transit on her way home from Kuwait to see her children for the first time in three years, hanged herself in a toilet at Dubai airport, Emirati media reported yesterday. The report came just two days after Gulf states reached agreement with labor-sending Asian countries at a meeting in Abu Dhabi to join forces against the exploitation of migrant workers. Kala Sangarapillai, 30, from the Batticaloa district of eastern Sri Lanka took her own life three weeks ago, the Khaleej Times newspaper said, citing a forensics officer from Dubai police.

(more…)