TNA To Submit Prisoner Report To UN Human Rights Council

By Dinouk Colombage  Saturday, July 21, 2012

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) is in the process of preparing a report over the abuse of several Tamil prisoners, and the death of one, in Vavuniya. This report is to be submitted to the UN Human Rights Council, according to TNA spokesman Suresh Premachandran. Premachandran explained that, “we are preparing a detailed report over the unfortunate death of Ganesan Nimalaruban along with the abuse of several others. This is a serious matter, and one which the international community and the UN must be made aware of.” He said that they hoped to send the report to the UN “as soon as possible, ideally we will have it prepared by the end of next week.”
Earlier the TNA had submitted a report regarding the death and abuse of the Tamil prisoners in the Vavuniya prison to all of the foreign missions in Sri Lanka.
“The foreign missions have all expressed concern over the events, we now want this concern to spread to the UN”, Premachandran said.
Late last month 32 inmates, who were LTTE suspects, took three prison guards hostage in protest over prisoner transfers. The standoff lasted for 19 hours before members of the armed forces were dispatched to bring the situation under control.  One prisoner died during the rescue operation to free the prison guards while another is still in a coma. Human rights activists and TNA MPs later accused the prison authorities and the police of exacting revenge on the prisoners by physically harming them both during and after the rescue operation.