: From the Tamil Refugee Council Press Office, March 5, 2015. Melbourne, Thursday – The Tamil Refugee Council urges the Abbott government to back up its words in parliament and release, and rehabilitate, all children, including four-year-old Febrina, who are being seriously damaged by incarceration on Nauru. Febrina was one of 157 Tamils, including 37 children, apprehended at sea last July […]

FEATURE: BY TREVOR GRANT When I look into those gorgeous sparkling eyes of three-year-old Febrina in the photograph below, which was taken just over a year ago, I see two things. Apart from the obvious joy of a little girl celebrating a birthday, I see a child’s implicit trust in the adult world around her. She’s telling us she feels […]

OPINION BY TREVOR GRANT. For some time now, the world has been watching Australia drift away from its much-vaunted democratic foundations towards a menacing authoritarianism, where a government routinely treats the rule of law and the right to natural justice as inconvenient obstacles to be cast aside at any given time. This week we have seen this dark, disturbing trend […]

From the Tamil Refugee Council Press Office. February 20, 2015. Melbourne, Friday – Four asylum-seekers immediately returned to Sri Lanka after being intercepted on a boat at sea by Australian authorities near the Cocos Islands earlier this month face jail and torture, the Tamil Refugee Council said today. “This is another shameful act by a callous Australian government,” said Tamil […]

OPINION BY TREVOR GRANT. Betrayal is the noun most commonly used by Tamils to describe the actions of successive Sinhalese governments, and the international community, since Britain handed Sri Lanka its independence in 1948. It’s also the most appropriate word, given the history of deception and hood-winking that goes back almost a century. In 1920 Sinhalese chauvinists reneged on an […]

OPINION BY TREVOR GRANT: It was as predictable as rain in the monsoon season. The new Sri Lankan president Maithripala Sirisena this week issued a proclamation that the military would be granted civil police powers for “the maintenance of public order”. These, of course, are the same authoritarian powers that existed under his predecessor Mahinda Rajapaksa and were condemned by […]

Melbourne, Monday – A 25-year-old Tamil man facing deportation to Sri Lanka has thanked Melbourne protesters who were today able to prevent him from being flown to Darwin from Melbourne airport today. Puvaneethan, who fears he will be tortured if returned to Sri Lanka, returned to the Melbourne Immigration Detention Centre this afternoon after an aborted attempt by Immigration officials […]

Melbourne, Sunday, February 1, 2015 – A 25-year-old Tamil asylum-seeker fears he will be tortured if the Australian government goes ahead with its’ plan to send him back to Sri Lanka. Puvaneethan is set to be moved from detention in Melbourne to Darwin tomorrow at 9 a.m. in what is believed to be preparation for his forced deportation. Yesterday he […]

OPINION BY TREVOR GRANT.   The perks of political office too often provide a comfortable buffer between parliamentary representatives and the ordinary citizens they are meant to serve. In Sri Lanka it has been more like a chasm than a buffer, particularly for the party that claims to represent Tamils in the national parliament. And now, with a new president […]

  OPINION BY TREVOR GRANT* The sinister workings of the defeated Rajapaksa regime are being laid before the people of Sri Lanka for the first time in a post-election public purge designed to reinforce the status of the new president, Maithripala Sirisena, and allow him and his backers to claim a new era has dawned for the country. At the […]