The Tamil Refugee Council (TRC) marked 77 years of genocide with a protest outside the Sri Lankan Consulate on Tamil Oppression Day on February 4.
The TRC is demanding protection for Tamil refugees, many of whom live here without permanent visas.
Following the rally, they went to Parliament House and gave Andrew Charlton (Labor), Senator David Shoebridge (Greens), Independent Senator Fatima Payman, and Senator Lidia Thorpe evidence of the ongoing genocide and discussed the urgent need for action.
The TRC’s report details the systematic genocide, over 77 years, of Eelam Tamils and emphasised why Tamil refugees cannot be deported back to danger.
It outlined Sri Lanka’s decades-long war crimes, enforced disappearances, military occupation, and human rights violations, and called on the Australian government to hold Sri Lanka accountable.
“We refuse to allow the suffering of our people to be erased,” Renuga Inpakumar, the TRC spokesperson said.
“The Tamil genocide is not just history: it is happening now. Our people continue to be disappeared, our land is militarised, and Tamil activists are targeted for speaking the truth. Today, we have taken our fight for justice directly to the Australian Parliament.”
The report also exposes recent atrocities, such as the arrest of a British Tamil national under Sri Lanka’s draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), which allows for the arbitrary detention of citizens without warrants, the death, under suspicious circumstances, of Tamil prisoner Anura Bandara and the horrific assault on a Tamil baby by Sri Lankan police.
The report also outlines Sri Lanka’s continued military occupation of Tamil Eelam, systematic land grabs and the silencing of Tamil journalists and activists.
The TRC is demanding that Australia recognise the Tamil genocide, to give permanent protection to Tamil refugees and ensure that there no deportations to danger
It is also calling for the PTA to be repealed, for a referendum on Tamil Eelam’s right to self-determination and an independent international investigation into Sri Lanka’s war crimes.
Survivors of Sri Lanka’s genocide shared first-hand testimonies during the rally, and called on Labor and international community to end their complicity with the Sri Lankan state.
[Follow the Tamil Refugee Council on Facebook or Instagram.]
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