Sri Lankan Forces threat against civil organisations reaches serious level in all island
02/Mar/2017
The occupying Sinhala military was directly controlling the civil rights of the Muslim and Tamils under the previous regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa. But, the SL military under the joint regime of Maithiripala Sirisena and Ranil Wickramasinghe has chosen much worse forms of controlling the underlying social fabric of Muslim and Tamils in the island, complain Muslim and Tamil activists from Rural Development Society (RDS) organisations and women’s rural organisations in Batticaloa district in the East. SL military intelligence, which has gathered details of RDS activists and the details of their families, has been exerting pressure on the activists to operate as its informants. All the RDS organisations in the 14 divisions of Batticaloa district are facing the same threat and harassment from the SL military.
The harassment to collaborate with SL military intelligence has come after the recent Ezhuka Thamizh uprising in Batticaloa.
“We receive regular phone calls, almost every morning from the SL military intelligence wing personnel asking us to give details of the events taking place in the village. They ask about the external visitors or organisations that visit us with the intention of helping the war-affected or poverty-stricken people. We are also under pressure of providing details of events taking place,” a leading RDS leader in Batticaloa, who didn't wish to be named.
In particular, the SL military intelligence is collecting details from social medias and the people mobilising against continued military land grab and those seeking the whereabouts of those subjected to enforced disappearances in the past, the RDS leaders said.