Home > Struggle for Tamil Eelam > Tamil Refugees & Asylum Seekers > Young Tamil Asylum Seeker, Facing Deportation Hangs Himself in Germany, 10 December 2000

Young Tamil Asylum Seeker, Facing Deportation 
Hangs Himself in Germany

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.

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