Restrictions on travel!

– The Sudar Oli Editorial

(September 08, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Former Parliamentarian and the President of the All Ceylon Congress Appathurai Vinayagamoorthy has protested against the restrictions placed on travel to and from Jaffna district.

In a letter addressed to Major. General Chandrasiri, Jaffna Commander, he states that the restrictions are unfair. According to the restrictions, nobody could leave the Jaffna district without the permission of the army.

Furthermore, any one, who wants to travel to any district outside Jaffna, must get a letter of consent from the person residing in that district to permit him to stay with him.

Vinayakamoorthy points out that these two restrictions are violations of the fundamental rights guaranteed under section 14 of the constitution. He, therefore, requests the army to reconsider this requirement.

As a senior attorney at law, he has stated that if he doesn’t get a favourable response from the army, he would challenge the restrictions on travel in a court of law.

The government has denied the allegations by the Tamil side that the Tamil people in the peninsula are treated like prisoners in an open prison. But, these two restrictions only justify the allegation.

These restrictions are a special provision which is not applicable to other districts. These restrictions are laid down despite the determination of the Supreme Court that heard a fundamental rights application that the travel of Tamils from the north and east to Colombo should not be stopped in any way.

According to these two restrictions, any person from Jaffna who doesn’t have relatives or persons known to them in Colombo will not be able to undertake any journey to Colombo. Appathurai Vinayakamoorthy maintains that such restrictions are not justifiable under any circumstances.

Such restrictions only help to give the feeling that Jaffna is different from any other part of Sri Lanka and the restrictions are in the form of a visa, which can only lead to a feeling among the Tamils that they are alienated from others.

(An English translation of the Editorial in The Sudar Oli, Tamil daily, based in Colombo.)
- Sri Lanka Guardian