HR Day, 60th Anniversary of UDHR, observed in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 December 2008, 17:13 GMT]
“There are people in Jaffna who ask whether it is necessary to celebrate these days when human rights in Jaffna peninsula is violated with impunity and one cannot slight these questions,” K. Ganesh, Jaffna Government Agent (GA), participating as the chief guest, said in an event held Thursday to mark the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and Human Rights Day in Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission (SLHRC) Jaffna office, sources in Jaffna said. Jaffna HRC Coordinating Officer K. Sivarajasingam presided at the event in which important officials including Jaffna District Additional Director of Education, V. T. Selvaratnam and the chief editors of the Tamil dailies in Jaffna participated.

“There are communities in this country continue to be suppressed while the government maintains what it does is right,” K. Ganesh said.

“The security of the people of Jaffna peninsula is still questionable and SLHRC should provide guidance to safeguard and maintain it,” he added.

“We, as government officials, do take certain measures to ensure security but the efforts have proved unsuccessful due to the lack of cooperation from related authorities,” he further said.

“We too continue to perform our duties amidst various restrictions and blatant human rights violation that goes on unchecked in the peninsula,” K. Gnaesh said ending his speech.

“Our mouths are bound in such a way we cannot express our opinion and we have been reduced to the state of dumbness,” the chief editor of Jaffna Thinakkural, a Tamil daily published in Jaffna, said in his speech.

“The concept of universal human rights should not be confined only to books and declarations but should reach the people fully,” the chief editor of Valampuri Tamil daily, N. Vijayasuntharam, said while speaking in the event.

“It is high time the concept of human rights were seriously dwelt on, in Jaffna,” he further said.

Prizes were awarded to the successful competitors in the events held at schools and other public institutions to mark HR and UDHR days.