Trincomalee protesters reject domestic probe into disappearances

All photographs Tamil Guardian

Protestors are gathered outside the Kuchchaveli Divisional Secretariat in Trincomalee in a silent demonstration against the Presidential Commission on Missing Persons, set up by former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, which is sitting in the town on the eastern coast today.
Relatives of the forcibly disappeared, both Tamil and Muslim, held placards demanding the release of those held by the state and called on the government to invite the UN's Working Group on Enforced Disappearances to investigate, rather than conduct its own probe.
Intelligence officers from the Sri Lankan navy photographed the protestors, according to a demonstrator, who requested to remain anonymous.
The protest was organised by the Tamil Civil Society Forum, ahead of the sitting of Sri Lanka's domestic commission probing disappearances. The organisation, along with the Welfare Organisation for the Forcibly Disappeared Persons, announced that they would be boycotting the commission in a statement on Thursday.

TNA Northern Provincial Councillor Ananthy Sasitharan, whose husband is one of the disappeared, also attended the protest