Lankans in London protest against AI’s ‘Play by the rules’ campaign

Hundreds of Sri Lankans, living in London, belonging to all political parties and ethnic groups, demonstrated outside the Amnesty International headquarters in Easton Street, London on Friday demanding that the AI should not come in between the Lankan team and its possible Cricket World cup win.

The protest was organized by the Campaign for Peace & Unity in Sri Lanka (CPUSL).

The CPUSL representatives subsequently handed over a letter addressed to the AI Secretary-General to Dr Purna Senn, Director of the AI, Asia-Pacific Programme. The letter outlined that whilst there were other test cricket playing nations, participating in the current ICC World Cup cricket championships, that were known to be grossly violating human rights, AI’s decision to select Sri Lanka for this campaign demonstrated bias. It also pointed out that if human rights was the real issue of concern to Amnesty, they should then pursue action in this regard and not attempt to politicise sports.

The letter also highlighted the fact that Amnesty had failed to carry out aggressive campaigns against countries which were responsible for large scale civilian deaths, acute food shortages and torture regarding which they had failed to come up with appropriate campaigns. It pointed out that the recent statement by the LTTE spokeswoman Selvy Navaruban clearly indicated that the LTTE was championing this campaign with a view to diverting attention of the world from the LTTE’s own horrendous human rights record which has no match in the civilised world. It added that AI has so far not launched campaigns on child conscription, suicide bombings of civilians, assassination of democratically elected leaders of the Tamil community by the LTTE. The letter concluded that it is Amnesty that should play by the rules and demonstrate that it is an unbiased umpire in defending human rights world wide.

The protestors shouted slogans using hailers: ‘AI stop politicising sports’, ‘Amnesty keep out of Sri Lanka cricket’, ‘Irene Khan why silent on Bangladesh?’, etc.

CPUSL also distributed leaflets among the passers-by to draw their attention to Amnesty’s biased campaign. The banner held by the demonstrators stated ‘Protest against AI’s cricket ball campaign – CPUSL’.

"The attention of CPUSL has also been drawn to a press statement issued by AI on the eve of the demonstration in an obvious state of panic with the headline ‘Sri Lanka: human rights is the issue, not cricket’. CPUSL’s response to this is that if human rights is the issue then why involve cricket? Using sport to address human rights issues is at the centre of the current CPUSL campaign which will continue until AI withdraws its campaign," CPUSL said.