Home for Human Rights (HHR) is one of the oldest human rights organisations in Sri Lanka. Founded by the late Francis Xavier (LL.B., 1976, Called to the Bars of Sri Lanka and Ontario, Canada) (July 25 1933-June 10 2016), HHR has sought to address human rights violations against the marginalized and the oppressed population of Sri Lanka since 1977. HHR’s mandate is to document and advocate against recognised human rights violations as set out in the International Bill of Rights. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
HHR history can be traced back to the instrumental activism of Francis Xavier, Kandiah Kandasamy and Seelan Kadirgamar. They operated under the guidance of S. Kathiravelpillai, member of parliament for Kopay. HHR was converted into a charitable trust in 1991 by Francis Xavier and in 1995, Sherine Xavier commenced her tenure as executive director. Under Sherine's guidance from 1995 to 2001 and 2006 to 2015, HHR grew to be one of the largest human rights organisation in Sri Lanka. The trust is managed by 5 trustees. [6]
HHR was located in Colombo and had branch offices in Jaffna, Batticaloa, Akkaraipattu, Trincomalee, Vavuniya, Mannar, Killinochi, Mullaithivu and Hatton.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was a Tamil militant organization that was based in northeastern Sri Lanka. Its aim was to secure an independent state of Tamil Eelam in the north and east in response to the state policies of successive Sri Lankan governments that were widely considered to be discriminatory towards the minority Sri Lankan Tamils, as well as the oppressive actions—including anti-Tamil pogroms in 1956 and 1958—carried out by the majority Sinhalese.
The Sri Lankan Civil War was a civil war fought in Sri Lanka from 1983 to 2009. Beginning on 23 July 1983, there was an intermittent insurgency against the government by the Velupillai Prabhakaran led Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The LTTE fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam in the north-east of the island, due to the continuous discrimination and violent persecution against Sri Lankan Tamils by the Sinhalese dominated Sri Lankan Government.
Dr. Rajani Thiranagama was a Tamil human rights activist and feminist who was assassinated by Tamil Tigers cadres after she criticised them for their atrocities. At the time of her assassination she was the head of the Department of Anatomy at the University of Jaffna and an active member of University Teachers for Human Rights, Jaffna branch of which she is one of the founding members.
Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) was the Indian military contingent performing a peacekeeping operation in Sri Lanka between 1987 and 1990. It was formed under the mandate of the 1987 Indo-Sri Lankan Accord that aimed to end the Sri Lankan Civil War between Sri Lankan Tamil militant groups such as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan military.
The Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP) is a political party and a pro-government paramilitary organization in Sri Lanka. It is led by its founder Douglas Devananda.
Sunila Abeysekera was a Sri Lankan human rights campaigner. She worked on women's rights in Sri Lanka and in the South Asia region for decades as an activist and scholar. Quitting a career as a singer, Abeysekera briefly joined the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna and then founded the Women and Media Collective in 1984. As head of the INFORM Human Rights Documentation Centre, she monitored human rights violations by all parties in the civil war. She received the United Nations Human Rights Award in 1999 and the Didi Nirmala Deshpande South Asian Peace and Justice Award in 2013.
Ilayathamby Tharsini was a minority Sri Lankan Tamil woman who was raped and killed in her home town of Pungudutheevu on December 16, 2005.
Krishanti Kumaraswamy, also spelled Krishanthi Kumaraswamy, was a Tamil woman in Sri Lanka who was raped and murdered on 7 August 1996 by 6 Sri Lankan Army soldiers; the effort to bring her assailants to justice became a cause célèbre as a part of the protest against atrocities committed by the Sri Lankan Army during the Sri Lanka civil war.
Sri Lankan Tamils, also known as Ceylon Tamils or Eelam Tamils, are members of the Tamil ethnic group native to the South Asian island state of Sri Lanka. Today, they constitute a majority in the Northern Province, live in significant numbers in the Eastern Province and are in the minority throughout the rest of the country. 70% of Sri Lankan Tamils in Sri Lanka live in the Northern and Eastern provinces.
The Navaly Church bombing was the 1995 bombing of the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Navaly in the Jaffna Peninsula by the Sri Lankan Air Force during the Sri Lankan Civil War. It is estimated that at least 147 civilians, who had taken refuge from the fighting inside the church, died as a result of this incident. The victims included men, women and children.
The Nager Kovil school bombing refers to a airstrike that took place on September 22, 1995, when the Sri Lankan Air Force bombed the Nagar Kovil Maha Vidyalayam school in Jaffna, resulting in the death of, by varying accounts, 34-71 Sri Lankan Tamil civilians, primarily schoolchildren and the injury of many more. Sri Lankan Defense Spokesman admitted the incident but claimed they it was a LTTE facility and most of the dead were LTTE cadres. Journalists and human rights organizations reported the imposition of censorship and the airstrike took place about 12 hours after the Government imposed press censorship on reporting military events.
TamilNet is an online newspaper that provides news and feature articles on current affairs in Sri Lanka, specifically related to the erstwhile Sri Lankan Civil War. The website was formed by members of the Sri Lankan Tamil community residing in the United States and publishes articles in English, German and French.
Kathiravelu Nythiananda Devananda, commonly known as Douglas Devananda, is a Sri Lankan Tamil politician, Cabinet Minister and leader of the Eelam People's Democratic Party. Originally a Sri Lanka Tamil militant who fought against the Sri Lankan government for an independent Tamil Eelam, he became a pro-government paramilitary leader and politician. Due to his strong opposition to and vocal criticism of the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, they unsuccessfully tried to assassinate him over 10 times. Devananda is a proclaimed offender in India and is wanted on charges of murder, attempt to murder, rioting, unlawful assembly and kidnapping. He was sworn in as Minister of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources on 22 November 2019.
Michael Richard Ratnarajan Hoole is a Sri Lankan Tamil mathematician, academic and human rights activist. He was one of the founders of University Teachers for Human Rights (UTHR) which documented human rights abuses during the Sri Lankan Civil War.
The expulsion of non-resident Tamils from Colombo was an incident which took place on June 7, 2007 when 376 ethnic Tamil refugees living in Colombo were deported from the city by the Sri Lankan Police. The evicted were sent back to Jaffna, Vavuniya, Trincomalee and Batticaloa, where they are originally from, in several buses with a police escort. However the buses only went as far as the town of Vavuniya and the evicted Tamils were forced to stay in a detention camp. The President asked those who were evicted to come back to Colombo and ordered an investigation into the incident
Muttrupulliyaa is a Sri Lankan film about four individuals of Tamil descent living in Sri Lanka after the end of the Sri Lankan Civil War in 2009. This is the first film from Sri Lanka to describe this period
Sexual violence against Tamils in Sri Lanka has occurred repeatedly during the island's long ethnic conflict. The first instances of rape of Tamil women by Sinhalese mobs were documented during the 1958 anti-Tamil pogrom. This continued in the 1960s with the deployment of the Sri Lankan Army in Jaffna, who were reported to have molested and occasionally raped Tamil women.