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Home > Struggle for Tamil Eelam > Tamil Refugees & Asylum Seekers > Young Tamil Asylum Seeker, Facing Deportation Hangs Himself in Germany, 10 December 2000
Courtesy: http://www.eelamnation.com
10 December
2000
A young man, apparently fearing torture in Sri
Lanka, hanged himself to death in Germany. Mr. Katheeswaran
Subramaniam, aged 25, who was declined refugee status in Germany,
was awaiting deportation. He left a letter note saying that he
was afraid that the German officials would certainly send him to
Colombo where he would have to face torture by the Sri Lankan
armed forces.
Torture is
a fundamental violation of human rights, condemned by the General
Assembly of the United Nations as an offense to human dignity and
prohibited under national and international law. Yet torture and
other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment persist, daily and
across Sri Lanka, against Tamils.
Two people out of five, who were declined the refugee status by
the German government in 1995, were sent back to Sri Lanka
recently.
Human rights groups and churches in German have already asked the
authorities to reconsider and review their claims, in order to
avoid further such killings by these innocent youths. "It shows
how they fear torture in Sri Lanka," said one human rights
activist.
These rights organizations have shown increased concern following
the Bindunuwewa massacre in which thirty-one... Tamil
youths were brutally killed by the Sinhala mobs. They said "these
claimants fear for their lives in Sri Lankan prison".
Meanwhile, a human rights organization in the United States has
condemned the continuous human rights abuses in the homeland of
Tamils where the Sri Lankan armed forces keep using civilians as
human shields.
The Sri Lankan, troops trapped in the Jaffna peninsula, have been
using the passenger flights and ships to carry military weapons
for the soldiers according to civilian sources.