Welikade Tamil prisoners agitate to meet UN official

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 October 2007, 02:44 GMT]
Eighty six Tamil detainees in Welikade maximum security prison and forty Tamil prisoners from Magazine prison staged a token hunger strike Tuesday demanding that Sri Lanka Government arrange High Commissioner of Human Rights in the United Nations, Ms Louise Arbour, who is currently on a fact finding mission to Sri Lanka, to visit the detainees in the prison. The detainees said Ms Arbour should be told of the prison conditions, and the extended incarceration without the right to a trial, civil society sources in Colombo said.

The detainees have informed the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians of their agitation for a meeting with Ms Arbour.

Tamils detained in the two prisons are arrested in Northeast area and Colombo and its suburbs.