AFP/IANS

Colombo

Sri Lanka has released two leading rights activists after their detention under strict anti-terrorism laws triggered international condemnation, police and supporters said yesterday.

Father Praveen Mahesan, a Catholic priest who heads the Peace and Reconciliation Centre in the war-torn Jaffna region, and Ruki Fernando, of the Colombo-based INFORM advocacy group, were detained on Sunday as they met relatives who lost loved ones during the Tamil separatist conflict.

Police spokesman Ajith Rohana said they were released after a court ruling late on Tuesday.

Rohana said the activists, who were arrested in the northern district of Kilinochchi, were questioned extensively during their detention and further police investigations would
continue.

Udaya Kalupathirana, director of INFORM, said the pair had been released without charge. “They have not been told to appear in court again,” he added.

The United States led international criticism of the arrests, saying they showed the need “for continued scrutiny” of Sri Lanka’s rights record.

The arrests came in the build-up to a crunch vote at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva at the end of the month when President Mahinda Rajapakse’s regime is
expected to be censured.

The US has drawn up a draft resolution calling for an international investigation into allegations that up to 40,000 Tamil civilians were killed after government forces ordered them into a no-fire zone in the final stages of the conflict
in 2009.

Colombo has flatly rejected the draft resolution, and the report by UN rights chief Navi Pillay on which it was based, as “unwarranted
interference”.

Sri Lanka has previously said it needs more time to address issues of accountability and reconciliation after ending the 37-year conflict, which according to UN estimates claimed at least 100,000 lives.

Police say the two activists were detained after shots were fired from within a home that they were visiting, injuring one officer.

In a statement yesterday, the government clarified it had arrested three Tamil activists, including a woman, under an anti-terror law on suspicion they were involved in abetting efforts to reorganise the banned Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Activist Balendran Jayakumari was arrested on March 13 near Kilinochchi on terrorism related charges. Her 13-year-old daughter Vibooshika was taken along and placed under the care of a child care service.

The government said Jayakumari was harbouring K P Selvanayagam a.k.a. Gobi, a Tamil activist who had returned to Sri Lanka and “was actively involved in reviving the LTTE”. Gobi had fired at police when they came to arrest him and injured a
policeman.

The statement also trashed the allegations of Ananthi Sasitharan, an elected member of the Northern Provincial Council, that Jayakumari’s daughter was arrested. It said that the teen was not arrested but “only at the insistence of the mother” taken along with her and produced before the magistrate for a protective
order.

It said the March 16 detention of Fernando and Father Mahesan was “in connection with the investigation into the attempts to revive the LTTE by operatives” and the recovery of arms at Vishwamadu on March 11 and a shooting incident in Dharmapuram on March 13 in which the “involvement of Gobi came
to light”.

Jayakumari is a member of the Mannar Citizens’ Committee, a coalition of families seeking information on the whereabouts of missing loved ones.