News & events
18.05.18 Mullivaikkal Commemoration Day
On 18th May the British Tamil Forum and other groups held their annual rally commemorating the 2009 massacre at Mullivaikkal by the Government of Sri Lanka (GSL).
Friends, Thanks for the invitation to speak at your rally.
Since the Terrorism Act 2000, UK anti-terror laws have helped the GSL to portray any opposition as terrorist and to portray its own war crimes as counter-terrorism. Likewise the 'terror' stigma has been used to suppress political debate here, e.g. by prosecuting activists, more generally intimidating Tamil groups and denying venues for their public events, especially any event about Tamil self-determination. This political suppression was the main purpose of those laws.
Your real friends are the few MPs (such as those in Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet) who voted against those laws, and other migrant groups who resist the anti-terror powers, such as the Kurdish freedom movement here. They joined in your 2009 protests against the GSL's massacres.
This UK legislation has been supported by the leadership of the other main political parties and most MPs, including most members of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Tamils. Therefore they are complicit in the GSL's crimes and in the UK's persecution of Tamil groups here. These MPs are false friends.
You should ask them to demand that the UK government
- immediately lift its ban on the LTTE, and
- issue arrest warrants for war crimes against relevant GSL officials living here or visiting here, under the 'universal jurisdiction' of international law.