Give their freedom at last to 280,000 Tamil civilians! Human rights activists set up refugee tent at the Brandenburger Tor: Europe must speak out for the closure of the internment camps in Sri Lanka!

With the setting up of a fenced-in symbolic refugee tent in the centre of Berlin the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) protested on Tuesday together with Tamil refugees against the internment of more than 280,000 innocent women, children and men in Sri Lanka. "The civilians who are being held under inhuman conditions are threatened with a humanitarian disaster when in December the monsoon rains begin”, warned the GfbV Asia consultant, Ulrich Delius. The conditions in the overfilled internment camps are already intolerable. "The European Union must speak out urgently for the immediate closure of the camps.” The EU must in addition demand free access for the international helpers to the refugees in all camps.

The human rights commissioner of the German government, Günter Nooke, emphasised in a speech welcoming the demonstrators: ”We must say quite clearly to the Sri Lankan government what we expect of it: and that is, besides the clear demands for a clearing up, also in terms of criminal justice, of what happened at the end of the civil war this summer, above all that the inhuman situation in the refugee camps be ended as quickly as possible: that people be enabled immediately to return in dignity to a self-determined life.”

"Sri Lanka is violating humanitarian international law if it denies access to the camps to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which is

committed to strict neutrality”, criticised Delius. Other aid agencies are also being hindered in their work. There is in the camps a lack of medical care, fresh water and sanitary installations. Even the United Nations, which have hitherto supported the care for the inmates of the camps, are now calling for them to be immediately closed. This plea has recently been taken up also by the Archbishop of Colombo, the Singhalese Malcolm Ranjith, and the Catholic Bishop of the city of Jaffna, Thomas Sauvdraayagam.

Tamil refugees reported during the human rights campaign of the disastrous conditions in the internment camps. Seriously ill people are still being held there although they had weeks ago applied for permission to leave the camps and to live with relatives.

Since the end of the civil war in May 2009 members of the Tamil minority living in the north of Sri Lanka are being held by the authorities in internment camps just for the reason of their ethnic background. The Sri Lankan government had promised in May to allow the refugees to return to their native villages within six months. "However there is no indication that this promise is in fact being kept”, said Delius. The government of Sri Lanka has given many assurances concerning the handling of the refugee tragedy, but the words are not being followed by deeds.