Activists demand justice in Sri Lanka rape case
Call for an end to impunity as nine suspects brought to court.
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| Photo: lonelyplanet.com |
The demonstrations were held to coincide with the arraignment of nine suspects in the gruesome gang-rape and murder of a Jaffna teenager last month.
Vithiya Sivaloganadan, 18, was attacked by nine men in Punguduthivu on May 13 while en route to school. Local media reports noted that police failed to act on the family’s complaint when the girl went missing, instead urging them to search for her themselves. When her brother did just that, he came across her corpse — bound, gagged and tied to separate trees in the jungle.
Though the police arrested nine men in the following days, violent protests broke out in Jaffna the following week. Sri Lankan courts are notoriously slow and some rape cases have dragged on for 10 years.
Enraged local residents pelted stones at police and a local courthouse on the Jaffna peninsula last week after the girl's bruised body was found near her home on May 14, one day after she went missing.
Police responded by firing tear gas at the protesters and arresting 130 people who took part, a move that residents said only fuelled anger. To calm tensions, Sri Lanka's President Maithripala Sirisena flew to the former warzone to meet the family and assure a speedy judicial process.
On Monday, peaceful demonstrators across the country donned black clothing and called for an end to impunity.
“We demand justice and organized street demonstrations in several parts of the country,” said Sepali Kottegoda, the Executive Director of the Women and Media Collective, who attended a protest in front of Ministry of Justice in Colombo.
“The country continues to encourage a culture of impunity due to the lack of law enforcement with reference to sexual abuse against women and children,” she said.
Sivaloganathan’s mother Saraswathie told local media that the family has moved from Jaffna for their own safety, fearing those connected to the suspects might lash out.
Mahalakshmi Gurushanthan, district coordinator of the Mannar Women’s Development Federation, said that violations against women and children have increased since Sri Lanka’s 25-year-long civil war came to an end in 2009.
“The war is over but [a] war of sexual violence against Tamil women and [the] girl child is not over,” she said. “Today Sivaloganathan; who will be the next?”
In addition to Colombo, demonstrations were staged in Mullaitivu, Kilinochchi, Vavuniya, Batticaloa, Akkaraipattu, Kandy and Mannar.
Vijayarani Satheeskumar, a Tamil lawyer who appeared in the Urkavattthurai court today, told ucanews.com that the nine suspects in the murder have been remanded to police custody until June 15.
“The judge ordered the court to take blood samples of the nine suspects in front of Judicial Medical officer before the next hearing,” she told ucanews.com.
“The judge ordered to Crime Investigation Department to check the incoming and outgoing mobile phone calls of the nine suspects,” she added.
Source: ucanews.com
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